The Austrian Court from Within 



By the same Author 



Memories of Forty 
Years 

The Royal Marriage 
Market of Europe 

Sovereigns and States- 
men of Europe 



The Austrian Court 
from Within 



By 



Princess Catherine Radziwill 

u 
(Catherine Kolb-Danvin) 



With Eight Photogravure Illustrations 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






•^L 20 1916 



/ 



"Ife. 



PREFACE 

BEFORE sending this little book into the world, I 
would like to warn any readers which it may find 
that the facts related in it are published by me in full 
consciousness that some eventual importance may come 
to be attached to them. 

We are fighting an enemy who ignores the most 
elementary moral principles, and I do think it is the 
duty of everyone to try to unmask that enemy, to 
cry out to the civilised world to beware of him. The 
present work is the result of a careful study of German 
politics for a period stretching over something like forty 
years : a study which has convinced me that Austria all 
through that time has been but a pawn in the hands of 
her powerful neighbour, and that she is bound in the 
end to become absorbed in Germany. 

I have, therefore, attempted to depict a country, a 
Court and a society already in the last stages of decay. I 
will not pretend that in doing so I have been looking 
only for the best characteristics they may happen to 
possess. On the contrary, I have tried also to unmask 
the hypocrisy which has always lain at the bottom of 
Austrian policy; to point out the bigoted egotism of 
Austria's higher classes; to draw my readers' notice to 



Preface 

the selfishness, aggravated by vanity, which from time 
immemorial has characterised the dynasty and the House 
of Habsburg. 

I feel obliged to make this confession, and also to add 
that I am indebted to my own observations, and to the 
correspondence which at different times I have exchanged 
with several leading political men in Europe, for the facts 
that I have here sought to fit one with the other so as 
to produce a whole out of which I draw my own conclu- 
sions. Of course, there may be inaccuracies, but I have 
tried only to mention things which I either knew for fact, 
or at least had heard from people upon whose veracity I 
could rely. 

C. XV. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PACtB 

1. Francis Joseph, as Archduke and Emperor , 1 

2. The Empress Elisabeth ..... 32 
8. The Imperial Family ...... 48 

4. The Affairs of Francis Ferdinand ... 72 

5. The Personal Friends of Francis Joseph . 87 

6. Frau Catherine Schratt and the Emperor's 

Friendships ....... 102 

7. The Mayerling Tragedy . . . . .116 

8. Among Society in Vienna ..... 131 

9. Hungary, its Political Men and Social Life . 145 

10. Among the Poles and Czechs .... 159 

11. The Last Love Affair of the Habsburgs . .173 

12. The Austrian Clergy ..... 188 

13. Leaders of Militarism and Diplomacy . . 201 

14. The Great Disillusion of the Future .212 

15. A Bird's-eye View ...... 221 

Index . . .,,,... 227 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria . Frontispiece 

Ifaoino pagb 

Empress Elisabeth of Austria .... 34 

Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the Duchess of 

hohenberg ....... 60 

Frau Catherine Schratt ...... 108 

The Crown Prince Rudolph . . . . .118 

Baroness Marie Vetsera ...... 128 

Archduke Karl Franz Joseph .... 162 

Archduchess Zita 212 



The Austrian Court from Within 

CHAPTER I 

FRANCIS JOSEPH, AS ARCHDUKE AND EMPEROR 

'TpHE great wave of revolution which swept over nearly 
-■- the whole of Europe in 1848 did not spare Austria. 
Germany was in a blaze of fiery agitation, too. It 
seemed as if it were inevitable that the two ancient 
dynasties of Habsburg and HohenzoUern were both des- 
tined to immediate exile ; from which there would be no 
prospect of return. 

At Vienna the danger seemed to be more intense than 
anywhere else. The upper classes and the higher spheres 
of the aristocracy, indeed, were fully persuaded that not 
only were their possessions and privileges in imminent 
danger, but that their very existences were in peril. 
Prince von Metternich himself — that Nestor among 
statesmen whom the world, in common with himself, 
believed to be so firmly established in the confidence of 
the people as leader of Austrian policy, that death alone 
could rob him of office — ^found himself compelled to seek 
refuge abroad. The tide of rebellion rolled strong and 
swift over those of high estate in Austria. 

It is not difficult to explain the seething discontent 



The Austrian Court from Within 

that reigned. The Sovereign had lost the sympathy and 
the respect of his subjects by his manner of Hfe. There 
was, indeed, nothing in his personaHty, attainments or 
behaviour which could claim either allegiance or affection 
from his subjects. 

The Emperor Ferdinand I. was the eldest son of 
Francis II., that Emperor who had not hesitated, for 
political gain, to hand over his daughter to the mercies 
of the man whom he considered as a mere " Corsican 
adventurer." Ferdinand himself was imperceptive, obsti- 
nate and bigoted in his usual attitude toward life. So 
strongly, indeed, were these characteristics displayed that 
even his most devoted adherents were forced to acknow- 
ledge that his presence at the head of the Government 
was a peril for his dynasty as well as for his country. He 
belonged to the ranks of those who forget that they have 
obligations and duties, but who never fail to remember 
that they are in possession of special privileges which 
raise them above common mortals. 

The Emperor Ferdinand married a woman renowned 
for her loveliness, the Princess Marie Anne of Savoy. At 
this date, of course, he was still the Archduke. His 
Archduchess found her life so very different from her 
legitimate expectations that before she became Empress 
she lived her days as a nun. When Ferdinand came to 
the throne the Empress Marie retained her austere views, 
and, greatly to the distress of her Court and the chagrin 
of Austrian Society, she tabooed low-cut dresses at the 
receptions which, occasionally, she was compelled to give. 



Should Ferdinand Abdicate ? 

In one thing, it must be remembered, both the 
Emperor and Empress were like-minded : they were 
devout to a degree. In another aspect, indeed, they were 
also well-matched : they were both negligible quantities 
so far as real administrative work was concerned. Metter- 
nich held in his hands the reins of the Empire, and the 
Emperor was only too glad. This state of things suited 
Metternich very well indeed, for that clever, domineering 
politician would not have cared to have as his master a 
man who insisted upon his personal opinions being taken 
into account. 

When the revolution broke out and threatened 
Vienna, the politicians who aided Metternich in ruling 
the State were obliged to realise that it had become 
impossible to keep on the throne a Sovereign who could 
hardly sign his name to documents put before him and 
who had but a dim understanding of the duties of a 
monarch. The difficult thing, however, was to persuade 
Ferdinand that it was for the good of his country that 
he should abdicate. He shared with other individuals 
who have crossed the pages of history by way of the 
Habsburg throne, an exalted idea of his own fitness for 
the Imperial mantle, and his attitude to those around 
him — who, whatever their status, he considered were 
inferior beings — was that of a despot with the instincts 
of a tyrant. In regard to his own family he was imperious 
and impatient, brooking no challenge to his decisions and 
no difference from his opinions. Yet, with it all, Ferdi- 
nand was not a bad man so far as his private life was 



The Austrian Court from Within 

concerned. He had no desires, no aspirations beyond 
eating a good dinner, or going to church, or participating 
in some rehgious function, while he found perennial 
enjoyment in feeding one or other of the many monkeys 
he kept about him. Had Ferdinand been a common 
mortal he would have been considered a bore, with some 
suspicion as to his mental fitness. 

When the question of abdication became more insis- 
tent, considerations arose as to upon whom the crown 
would devolve. Ferdinand's next brother, the Archduke 
Francis Charles, had made himself unpopular by a sus- 
picion of being implicated in reactionary propaganda. 
He was accused, indeed, of being the instigator of the 
indignation against the Austrian Government which lay 
.at the root of the turbulence of those troubled times. 

How far true in reality was the belief held by those 
in power never became known, but the shadow remained 
upon the name of Francis Charles. Had circumstances 
been different in regard to his political activities he 
would hardly have been chosen to succeed his brother, 
because he, too, had those unmistakable traits of 
degeneracy which mark the Habsburgs, and is the out- 
come of intermarriage with their own line. It would 
be unfair to speak of their idiosyncrasies in any stronger 
way than to utter the remark that these men were not 
well balanced, and were liable at any moment to indulge 
in extravagance or break into some form of dangerous 
originality. No doubt much of this defect could have 

been eradicated by judicious education, but this, instead, 

4 



Empress Marie Anne 

proceeded upon lines which failed to correct their natural 
deficiencies or to temper their extravagances of thought ; 
rather, it increased their sense of self-importance and 
inculcated the certainty that in brain power they were 
infinitely superior to the rest of mankind. 

Under these circumstances it was doubly unfortunate 
that the Empress Marie Anne was a woman incapable of 
arousing in her husband the desire to do something toward 
the progress of his Empire. She neither urged him to 
make use of his own capabilities nor pointed out to him 
that the wise course would be to surround himself with 
Ministers possessing the qualities and experience which 
he lacked. She was lovely, kind and meek, but with no 
grain of enterprise in her soul. Marie would never have 
dared to interfere, even for the best of reasons, with what 
did not immediately concern her. History says that she 
was once implored by the mother of a young soldier con- 
demned to death for desertion to beg Ferdinand I. for 
a commutation of the sentence. The only reply the 
Empress made to the agonised mother was that she would 
try her best should the Emperor speak to her on the 
subject, but on no account could she broach the matter 
to him unasked. The Empress had all those traits which 
come of being bom in a circle where there are always 
people to do the thinking and to relieve one from the 
necessity of attending to one's wants. She firmly believed 
that the only duties of an Empress consisted in setting a 
good example to her Court ; of wearing the Crown jewels 

on stated occasions ; of going to church every day — fasting 

5 



The Austrian Court from Within 

whenever the Church required her to do so ; and ultimately; 
to retire into a complete retreat from the world when she 
became a widow. 

The sister-in-law of the Empress, Sophy of Bavaria, 
who married the Archduke Francis Charles — the second 
son of the Emperor Francis II. — was of very different 
cahbre from the Empress, being used to give expression 
to her opinions with entire freedom. A member of that 
gifted race, the Wittelsbachs, she was endowed with their 
high intelhgence, but managed to evade their penchant 
for extravagance of thought and manner. She was clever 
to a remarkable degree, ambitious, enterprising, and of 
a dominating temper. She was, indeed, quite the anti- 
type to the archduchesses of Austria. Beautiful and 
accomplished, too, she easily acquired influence over all 
with whom she came into contact, and \yas always able to 
hold her own with people cleverer than herself. She had 
all the dignity of her unfortunate aunt, Marie Antoinette, 
and was imbued with the grand manner to her very finger- 
tips. From the very first day she entered into the intimate 
family circle of Imperial Habsburg she was a power in it, 
and was listened to with far more deference than the 
Emperor himself. As a matter of fact, though Ferdinand 
was feared, he was neither liked nor considered among 
his immediate kindred. 

One of the early determinations of the Archduchess 
Sophy was that when she became Empress she would 
sweep away the old regime at the Hofburg, where con- 
tact with the outside world was prohibited, and the 



Archduke Francis Charles 

domestic and Court life so hedged round with archaic 
customs and ceremonies that existence became unbearable 
to anyone possessing originality of thought. With this 
intention firmly fixed in her mind Sophy gathered around 
her men and women who held other claims to notice than 
high birth, a procedure which aroused bitter animosity 
among the courtiers as well as among her immediate 
relatives. Of this, however, Sophy was disdainful, though 
she curbed her feehngs in the face of opposition. She 
was by temperament an opportunist, determined in the 
end to secure her own way, but wise enough, or unscru- 
pulous enough, to dissemble for the time being ; she 
understood, in short, the art of diplomacy in its more 
delicate phases. 

The Archduke Francis Charles was fortunate in his 
choice of a wife. Her domestic and family life was wise 
and womanly. The four sons which came of the marriage 
were brought up with care and foresight and a wise 
restriction rarely met with in royal families. Some there 
were who said that the Archduchess had realised that 
when her husband came to the throne he would not, 
without a terrible struggle, allow her to exercise power. 
Therefore, she was training her sons so that, when the 
turn of one of them came to reign, he would recognise 
her political and diplomatic wisdom, and be content to 
let her be the real ruler. Be that as it may, it is certain 
that Sophy had been the dominant partner all through 
their married life. It was equally certain, too, that 

Francis had chafed exceedingly under the imperious will 

7 



The Austrian Court from Within 

of his Archduchess. Like all weak temperaments, he 
would be certain to take the first opportunity of his new 
power as Emperor to avenge himself for the state of 
servitude in which she had managed to keep him. The 
Archduchess knew quite well that though her career as 
Empress would be brilliant, from the moment she entered 
the ancient walls of the Vienna Hofburg as a bride she 
would not be permitted to do as she liked to the extent 
she had been accustomed. 

In the meantime the Archduchess Sophy was content 
to watch the unfolding of events and to observe the 
motives and aims of the political agitations which were 
beginning to trouble the serenity of Europe. She was 
in constant correspondence with her sisters, the future 
Queens of Prussia and of Saxony, thereby remaining 
familiar with all that went on at these two Courts as well 
as at Munich. What she observed as to the trend of 
affairs, from her knowledge of current events and her 
conclusions based upon what happened, led her to deter- 
mine to train her boys in a way entirely different from 
the lines hitherto adopted in regard to young archdukes. 
Usually they were educated to be keenly alive to their 
own importance, but at the same time denied any- 
thing approaching to serious education fitting them to 
take up their part in life with real earnestness and 
discernment. 

The Archduchess reversed this order, and succeeded 
admirably in her plans, particularly with her son Maxi- 
milian, who was afterwards to perish so miserably at 



Francis Joseph as Archduke 

Mexico. Her eldest son, Francis Joseph, also showed 
the benefit of the training his mother enforced, though 
in his case his grip of matters was more superficial ; still, 
to those who judged from outward appearances, he was 
so different from his cousins that he was certain to become 
a popular monarch when the time arrived for him to rule 
the Empire of the Habsburgs. 

The manner in which young Francis Joseph was 
received by the people was a source of much joy to the 
Archduchess Sophy. He was her favourite son, and, 
more than that, in him she saw her future assured. It 
is said that a considerable factor in the depth of her 
affection was that Francis Joseph resembled another 
prince to whom Sophy had been warmly attached in her 
youth. The young nobleman for whom she had nursed 
a romantic affection was the Duke of Reichstadt, that 
unfortunate man whom sad destiny wrenched from the 
splendours of the Tuileries and thrust into the semi- 
imprisonment he so long endured at Schonbrunn. This 
luckless son of the greatest man of modern times had 
found in the Archduchess Sophy a kind and attentive 
friend, one who had never failed him in time of need, 
and who had done all she could to bring joy into his 
miserable life. When he died the young Archduchess 
Sophy shed for him more tears than even his mother — 
whom, history records, callously left him to his fate when 
misfortune overcame him. Later on it pleased the Arch- 
duchess to find some resemblance between the object of 
her former tenderness and the son for whom she nursed 



The Austrian Court from Within 

so many dreams of ambition, dreams in which, in truth, 
she played a leading part herself. 

When the Archduchess Sophy found her young son 
Francis was not so pliable as she imagined he would be, 
her love for him underwent some change ; she managed, 
nevertheless, to retain a very considerable influence over 
him in regard to political matters, upon which he con- 
stantly sought her advice and acted upon it. In the more 
intimate domain of the private domesticities of the royal 
household the strong personality of the Archduchess 
Sophy maintained its dominance, and the manner in 
which she exercised her power at Court and in the inner 
life at the Hofburg made life very hard indeed for 
the exquisitely beautiful bride whom Francis Joseph 
wedded. 

As Francis Joseph approached his later 'teens it 
became evident to even the strongest partisans of the 
House of Habsburg that its tenure of the throne was 
really in peril. Discontent was on every hand, and it 
seemed inevitable that the House would lose its kingdom 
if the Sovereign were allowed to continue his erratic rule. 
Nor was it likely that the people would look with favour 
upon the direct successor, the Archduke Francis Charles, 
the father of Francis Joseph and the brother of Fer- 
dinand I. The only hope lay in the abdication of the 
one, and the renunciation of the right of succession on 
the part of the other in favour of his son Francis Joseph, 
then a young man of considerable promise. Un- 
doubtedly, from the point of view of the nation's best 

10 



Princess Schwarzenberg of Liechtenstein 

interests this was quite the best thing to do, but everyone 
felt that it would take a very great deal of diplomatic 
persuasion to induce the Archduchess Sophy to consent to 
being deprived of the pride and glory of wearing the 
diadem of an Empress. Curiously, the feelings and 
claims of the two men most interested were not looked 
upon as factors of any importance in the affair ; what they 
thought or wanted mattered but little ; they were 
negligible factors. 

Even in favour of her own son, it was beyond expec- 
tation that the Archduchess Sophy would quietly and 
willingly forgo her legitimate ambition. Especially was 
this felt when it was remembered that her personal con- 
cerns were always accorded first place in her plans. 

At this difficult juncture a lady well known in 
Viennese society, the Princess Schwarzenberg, became 
the deus ex machina of an intrigue which successfully 
resolved the difficulty in a manner congenial to all con- 
cerned, and caused the Archduchess Sophy herself to 
propose the alternative which all had feared to place 
before her. 

By birth the Princess Schwarzenberg was a Princess 

of Liechtenstein, and among her friends in Society was 

known as Princess Lory. She was one of those women 

who make an impression in whatever kind of environment 

they may be thrust. She was beautiful, and loved to see 

that her charms called forth admiration. She was fond 

of the good things of life, and, needless to relate, was 

the object of all sorts of stories as to the genial frailties 

11 



The Austrian Court from Within 

she was supposed to possess. She exercised an undis- 
puted sway over Society in Vienna until the day of her 
death. 

At the time when the Princess made her influence 
felt in connection with the matter of the Habsburg suc- 
cession, she was the object of the adoring passion of 
Count William von Montenuovo. This dashing noble, 
like the Princess, was one of the idols of Society, who 
made much of him because of the valiant deeds he had 
performed. He was the only son of the morganatic mar- 
riage of the Empress Marie Louise, the widow of the 
great Napoleon, with Count Neipperg. 

During the Italian war of 1848 Count Wilham had 
accomplished many heroic deeds and had displayed such 
skill in leadership that he was promoted to be Colonel 
when he was only twenty-seven years of age. His other 
promotions and various honourable decorations were also 
won at the point of the sword. Few men were so popular 
as he in Vienna Society and in Court circles, for in addi- 
tion to his personal qualities and attractions, the fact that 
he was the son of an Archduchess procured for him an 
exceptional position. With the young Archduke Francis 
Joseph he was a favourite companion, the Emperor him- 
self liked to have him in his entourage, while the proud 
and haughty Archduchess visibly unbent whenever he was 
near. She had been fond of him from the day he had 
come to the Court with a letter from Marie Louise, 
begging Sophy to extend to the son of her second mar- 
riage the same kindliness and courtesy she had given to 

12 



Who Engineered the Abdication? 

her only son by the first marriage, the Duke of 
Reichstadt. 

The Princess Lory was a keen judge of human nature, 
and it did not take her long to enlist the entire allegiance 
of her admirer, von Montenuovo, to the scheme which 
she propounded into his willing ear. Gossip said with 
emphasis 'and delight that the Princess embarked upon 
her adventure largely because it afforded her an oppor- 
tunity to repay a grudge she nourished against the 
Empress Marie Anne, who had expressed herself with 
more freedom than discretion respecting the sprightly 
ways of the Princess. The Empress, indeed, used a much 
stronger term, for which the Princess had never forgiven 
her. 

Thus it came about that circumstances played to- 
gether, and the outcome was that the Princess recognised 
that the situation between the Royal House and the 
country provided a ready means of revenge for an old- 
standing slight. Her knowledge of her own sex enabled 
her to understand how to appeal to the Archduchess 
Sophy. She wanted her to view the facts in such a light 
that it would appear to her best interests, as well as to the 
future welfare of the Habsburgs, that Ferdinand should 
be dispossessed. And not only that : Sophy's own hus- 
band, too, would have to be sacrificed to the future 
welfare of the House, though she herself need not be a 
sufferer; it would be her lot, rather, to reign in reality 
through the nominal headship of her son. 

In following out this plan the Princess was too wise 

13 



The Austrian Court from Within 

to make her advances in person. She did so through the 
Count von Montenuovo. He, already, was assured of a 
favourable hearing to anything he might say, and the 
proposals, therefore, had better chance of success. 

So strongly did the Count put the case from the 
tutoring he had received from the Princess, that the Arch- 
duchess became persuaded that the whole fate of the 
Habsburg dynasty depended upon Ferdinand resigning 
the Crown into hands better able than he to carry with 
dignity, respect and efficiency the weight of responsibility 
in the momentous times which the Empire was passing 
through. This thoroughly frightened the Archduchess, 
whose love for her son would not allow his ultimate suc- 
cession to be endangered, and she agreed to persuade her 
husband to look at matters from the same aspect. 

That point being settled, the Archduchess Sophy was 
then introduced to the fact that her husband was also 
considered incompetent to occupy the throne. Imping- 
ing as it did upon her own prospect of becoming Empress, 
it required considerable tact and persuasion for the Count 
von Montenuovo to force home to the Archduchess the 
hopelessness of the future for the Habsburgs under any 
other condition than that the power should pass into the 
hands of her son, Francis Joseph. At last, however, the 
Count succeeded in the task the Princess had set him, and 
this made things much easier. For one thing, as soon as 
there was no likelihood of Archduchess Sophy becoming 
Empress, the Empress Marie Anne was willing to fall in 

with the idea, affording her, as it did, an opportunity of 

14 



Francis Joseph becomes Emperor 

embracing more completely than ever the ascetic course 
of life she preferred. 

When the Archduchess went to her husband she ex- 
perienced far less surprise and opposition than she 
expected. Francis did not find it a hard task to approach 
his brother Ferdinand, and point out that unless he 
abdicated the dynasty would be in jeopardy. He, too, 
had not needed much persuasion to renounce, also, his 
right of succession, so that when he went to see his brother 
he was prepared to put the whole proposition before him : 
that the abdication should be in favour of Francis Joseph. 
The Empress added her views to those of Francis Charles, 
and the matter was speedily settled. 

The solemn abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand I. 
took place with great pomp on the 2nd of December, 
1848, after which he retired to the Palace of the Hrad- 
schin in Prague, where he ended his days on the 29th of 
June, 1875, twenty-seven years later. The Empress 
survived him a few years, and left behind her a memory 
more marked by respect than regret. 

The part which the Count von Montenuovo had taken 
in bringing Francis Joseph to the throne was never for- 
gotten by the Emperor, who showered favours upon the 
Count and later created him a prince. He always re- 
mained on the most intimate terms with the Count, and 
it is noteworthy that in recent years his son. Prince 
Montenuovo, is easily the most influential man at the 
Austrian Court. 

When Francis Joseph took upon his shoulders the 

15 



The Austrian Court from Within 

Imperial mantle, he was a young man of eighteen : a 
handsome, tall, splendid fellow, full of life and activity 
and desirous of distinguishing himself not only as a 
Sovereign, but also as a man ; life had not yet soured him, 
nor sapped away his principles. To anyone seeing 
Francis Joseph for the first time he created a distinctly 
favourable impression ; only to the close observer did the 
latent cruelty of his disposition become apparent, and 
only after knowing more of him did the selfish and super- 
ficial traits which dominated his character show them- 
selves. He was an example of Habsburg degeneracy. 
Well concealed as yet but nevertheless present, the 
inherent defects of his race were perpetuated in his 
person, to come out strongly as the years rolled by. 

Francis Joseph had been brought up with a strict 
regard to the outward observances of the State religion, 
Roman Catholicity, and was supposed to be very religious. 
At heart he was no believer in the tenets of Mother 
Church ; indeed, it would have puzzled him to explain what 
they were. To him Catholicism was an abstract some- 
thing which was a powerful factor in keeping his House 
on the Throne ; while Church attendance was but a 
necessary means of demonstrating to his people that he 
adhered to the traditions of his forefathers. The matter 
appealed to his sentiment with far more force than to 
his reason. 

From his mother, Francis Joseph had inherited an 

imperiousness of manner and character which was often 

of use to him in impressing his dignity upon the people. 

16 



The Hungarian Rebellion 

He had not, however, been endowed with her active 
brain and intelligent mind. Consequently, all through 
his life he has been governed by prejudices rather than 
convictions. His private life has been unfettered by deep 
moral qualities, and he has carried that same feeling into 
his political activities, not scrupling to break his word 
whenever he has thought it of advantage to do so. His 
reign has shown this more than once. A single reference 
will display his shortcomings in this respect. Take the 
Hungarian rebellion; it clearly demonstrated to all who 
cared to make a study of his character and of his actions 
during that period, that he was narrow-minded, vindic- 
tive, hypocritical, selfish and mean. 

At the beginning of his reign Francis Joseph did not 
hesitate to invoke the aid of Russia against his own sub- 
jects. When the revolution was broken the Hungarians 
were so mistrustful of the Austrian Sovereign and his 
advisers that their leader, Georgey, preferred to surrender 
to the Russians than to the officials of Austria. And 
history proved the Hungarians right, because to this day 
the terrible reprisals this eighteen-year-old Emperor 
ordered remain unforgotten. Every Hungarian home- 
stead could tell how entirely hideous were the things 
which were done. Women, young and old, were stripped 
of their garments and flogged in the public streets of 
Budapest, and among them were ladies of the highest 
Hungarian aristocracy. 

Another incident of the same rebellion should be re- 
told. Rather than hand down to his descendants the stain 
c 17 



The Austrian Court from Within 

of a father criminally hanged, Count Louis Batthyany 
poisoned himself on the eve of the day appointed for his 
execution. It is related that the Countess Batthyany 
forced an entrance into the chamber of the Emperor, and 
implored him on her knees to grant her husband's life. 
He, curtly and with unnecessary cruelty, refused to do so, 
and when he heard of the suicide of the Count, ordered 
his lifeless body to be hung from the gallows which would 
have borne him had he lived a few hours longer. The 
result of this personal action of the Emperor was that the 
Countess made her son swear an oath never to condone 
his father's murder and never to accord to the Monarch 
the least token of respect. 

When the Emperor became King of Hungary he 
endeavoured by favours and honours to win recognition 
from the Count, but the son of Francis Joseph's victim 
refused every advance and every offer with cold and 
undisguised contempt. 

When the Hungarian rebellion had been crushed, the 
Emperor Francis Joseph received the Russian com- 
manders in audience. In returning to their own country 
he wished them to carry away his thanks for the help they 
had given, and also asked them to convey to their 
Emperor words which, since that day, have acquired a 
sad significance: "Tell your Emperor," he said, "that 
he has in me a son who will always be ready to obey any 
orders that he may care to give him. So long as I live I 
will remember and I will tell my children to remember 

when I am no more. It is entirely owing to the generous 

18 



The Emperor and Russia 

initiative of the Emperor Nicholas that I have been able 
to retain my throne." 

To these beautiful words facts were soon to give a 
terrible denial. It is to be wondered if the aged Emperor 
Francis Joseph, now that he has set fire to the conflagra- 
tion which is enveloping Europe in its devouring flames, 
ever thinks of that episode, ever recalls those words. It 
is another example of the hypocritical selfishness of his 
race that he should desire above all things that the result 
of the conflict he has started should be the harming — the 
destruction if he could have his will — of the nation which 
saved his throne in the hour of his distress. 

The fact that the Emperor was but eighteen at the 

time of the Hungarian atrocities saved him from blame. 

Much, indeed, may be forgiven a youthful monarch on 

account of inexperience, and the people were indulgent 

enough to throw the blame for his crimes on to the 

shoulders of his advisers. Even then, had he liked, 

Francis Joseph could have escaped the odium which was 

felt in the heart of every right-minded man at the terrible 

things which were done in Hungary; but, strange as it 

may seem, Francis Joseph did not care in the least to 

prove himself innocent of the dark deeds that had sullied 

the opening days of his reign. Instead, he was rather 

inclined to boast of what he called his firmness, and he 

wished to impress upon his subjects that it was a thing to 

be proud of. He turned a deaf ear to the misery of his 

victims, and not only expected his subjects to do the same, 

but also to greet with acclamation and pride the cruelties 

19 



The Austrian Court from Within 

which he had ordered with such rehsh and had had per- 
formed with such indifference. 

His subjects, however, were not so deUghted with him 
as in his vanity and selfishness he imagined they would 
be. Discontent increased as people realised that the 
change of ruler had not bettered their lot, and the pity 
which had prevailed at one so young being called upon to 
rule gave way to bitterness. 

With the coming to the throne of Francis Joseph the 
people had hoped for liberty of thought and action such 
as was enjoyed by almost every nation of Europe. In- 
stead, they found their every action dogged by a tyran- 
nical and arbitrary police just as harshly as under the old 
regime, while any opinions expressed were stifled by the 
axe of the executioner. This discontent assumed such 
proportions that one afternoon, as Francis Joseph was 
taking his customary walk along the ramparts which at 
that time surrounded the city of Vienna, a young man, 
who, it was later discovered, had been waiting several days 
to take his opportunity, stabbed the Emperor in the neck. 
The dagger wound was so serious that at first it was 
thought that Francis Joseph would die. His hour of 
destiny had not arrived, though he remained for a long 
time disabled as a result of the wound, and, indeed, lost 
the use of his sight for some weeks. 

The attempted assassination of Francis Joseph swerved 
the sentiments of the Austrians back again in his favour, 
and the people, especially in Vienna, gave way to ex- 
plosions of delight when it was at last announced that the 

20 



Attempted Assassination of Francis Joseph 

Emperor was on the high road to recovery. The first 
time he appeared once more in public he was received 
with effusive demonstrations of joy. So sincere did the 
ovation seem that Francis Joseph became convinced that 
his Hfe was precious to his subjects, and that thereafter 
he could treat them with even less ceremony than ever. 

This complacency was not shared by the Archduchess 
Sophy, who had been seriously alarmed at the attempt on 
her son's life. She was discerning enough to recognise 
that the affair meant more than the courtiers pretended 
to believe. It meant that in reality, despite the surface 
manifestations, the early popularity of Francis Joseph had 
disappeared, and that many had realised that the expecta- 
tions they had consequent upon the change of ruler would 
not be fulfilled. Throughout their dominions the Habs- 
burgs had accumulated so much hatred that it was indeed 
a wonder they were allowed to remain on the throne. 
They were looked upon with distrust and dislike mingled 
with active suspicion, and altogether, as she, the only one 
perhaps of that House with the desire or acumen to look 
ahead, peered into the future, the outlook was full of ugly 
omens for the Royal House. 

The relations of the Archduchess Sophy with the 

Emperor Francis Joseph were no longer what they had 

been in the past, though they were still more intimate 

than they had ever been with her second son, Maximilian. 

Later on there was to come a time when circumstances 

drew the Archduchess and Maximilian into closer bonds 

than with Francis Joseph, and she was to stand by him 

21 



The Austrian Court from Within 

in open defiance of the Emperor. But as yet the 
Archduchess Sophy found herself isolated, with no one 
of her own family to whom she could confide her fears and 
anxieties respecting the future of the dynasty. 

About this time it was the hope of the Archduchess 
that the Emperor should marry, but whenever she 
broached the subject to him Francis Joseph spurned the 
idea with a disdain which savoured of anger. He pre- 
ferred to indulge in the many love affairs with which he 
was successively engaged than to embarrass himself with a 
Consort. He would not be brought to a consideration of 
his duty toward his country and his dynasty ; it amused 
him and pleased his vanity to see the fairest women in 
Vienna eager to obtain one of his glances and always ready 
to cultivate a flirtation, which was the mild word Society 
applied to their Emperor's amorous proclivities. Love in 
its beautiful sense was unknown to him. He was un- 
doubtedly a handsome and attractive man in those years ; 
and apart from his royal estate he would have been 
called an unprincipled Lovelace. There came a day, how- 
ever, when even his pursuit of love palled, and he tired of 
his everlasting successes among the willing beauties of the 
city ; his vanity had allowed him to see that the flattering 
attentions to his royal person were not disinterested, as 
the jewellers of Vienna could tell. Before he had reached 
his twenty-third year he was so thoroughly blase that the 
fairest women failed to please his satiated palate, and his 
thoughts turned to the pleasure to be derived from secur- 
ing the love of a young and innocent princess who would 

22 



A Lover who Changed his Mind 

give herself to him without even a passing thought of 
worldly gain. 

The Archduchess was pleasantly surprised, therefore, 
to be told one day by her son that he contemplated falling 
in with her wishes in regard to marriage. She speedily 
proposed that he should visit his cousins, the daughters 
of the Duchess Louise in Bavaria, of whom Helene was 
then one of the most beautiful of the Royal Princesses of 
marriageable age in Europe. The Archduchess Sophy had 
long set her heart on the marriage of these two, as the 
girl fulfilled all the most rigid requirements of an ideal 
Empress of the House of Habsburg. Francis Joseph, 
being so enthusiastically assured of her rare beauty, was 
easily persuaded to see her, and a meeting was arranged at 
Ischl, whither the Duchess Louise repaired with her two 
daughters in the month of July, 1853. 

A romantic tale has been put into circulation concern- 
ing the completeness with which, at first sight, Francis 
Joseph fell in love with Elisabeth, Helene 's sister. The 
story is believed in right unto this day by certain persons 
well able to know what really were the facts of the case. 
When Francis Joseph approached Helene with his pro- 
posal of marriage, the Princess told him frankly that she 
was quite willing to unite her fate with his, but first he 
would have to assure her that after the wedding he would 
no longer indulge in any of the romantic intrigues to 
which he was supposed to be inclined. The Emperor was 
aghast at the audacity of the girl, and at once turned his 

back upon her, and more to pique Helene than anything 

23 



The Austrian Court from Within 

else, began a violent flirtation with the schoolgirl Elisa- 
beth. The young Princess viewed the honeyed words of 
the Emperor as serious attentions, and forthwith fell 
violently in love with him, giving him a young heart's 
adoration. In truth, the whole matter was settled more 
out of vanity on both sides than anything else, as after 
events go far to prove. 

Whether the version given is the true one or not I 
have no means of telling, but the fact remains that this 
schoolgirl in short frocks, with her hair flying round her 
shoulders, became betrothed to the Austrian monarch 
four days after he arrived at Ischl to ask her sister to 
become his wife. 

The Archduchess Sophy was dumb with astonishment 
when she discovered that her son was bringing a child to 
Vienna as the future Empress, but resigned herself to the 
fact in the hope that this inexperienced girl would be 
content to remain under her influence and supervision in 
all matters, and would not force her own opinions and 
will either in the Court or the domestic circle. 

As for the Princess Elisabeth, later on, when she had 

realised the emptiness of all her fond delusions, she 

acknowledged that she had been desperately in love with 

this cousin who had appeared like a Prince Charming of 

the fairy tale, and placed at her feet the Imperial Crown 

of one of the oldest dynasties in Europe. She confessed 

to being dazzled by the vision of pomp and the brilliance 

of the prospect thus opened up before her, and to being 

so overwhelmed with the magnitude of the future that she 

24 




ARCHDUKE KARL FRANZ JOSEPH 



The Engagement 

thought of nothing else but that Kfe would continue to be 
the beautiful dream it had appeared to be at that moment 
when her schoolgirl's fancy was captured by the vision. 

Elisabeth was accomplished and beautiful. She was 
bright, observant and quick in her mind, which was filled 
with romance and idealism. When she entered the 
church at Ischl on the day following her betrothal, she 
thanked God, as she leaned on the arm of her Knight, 
with all that fervent simplicity which was one of her most 
alluring charms, for all the happiness He had granted her, 
and for the Crown which was to be hers. Alas ! it was to 
become a crown of thorns in the days to come. The 
tragedy of that alliance was that Francis Joseph did not 
realise the jewel that God had given into his care. Had 
he understood the treasure he had taken to his heart he 
would have known how to guide the beautiful creature 
amidst the difficult duties of her new career, and to teach 
her how to fulfil them without committing blunders. 

In the April following the engagement the couple 
were to make a public entry into Vienna. The populace 
gathered in its streets, eager to catch a glimpse of 
the lovely Princess who would soon become their Em- 
press. Her youth and sweet grace had been freely spoken 
of, and wonderful tales had been told of her exquisitive 
beauty. The people, therefore, were in a tumult of ex- 
eitement and impatience for her arrival, her progress being 
triumphal in its vivacious jubilance. Acclamations rose 
on every side as the flower-laden barge which brought her 

to the landing-place on the Danube approached the spot 

25 



The Austrian Court from Within 

where the carriage was waiting. She sat amid the pro- 
fusion of roses that decked the Royal vessel, looking like a 
fairy in pale pink, wrapped around with billowy clouds of 
white tulle. Added to this effect was the brilliant gleam 
of diamonds, which shone and glittered among the dark 
beauty of her hair. Never did a queen seem so fair as this 
daughter of the Wittelsbachs when she entered the gates 
of the old town, proudly led from the barge by the 
Sovereign-lover, who escorted her through the long line 
of courtiers and officials who had gathered to meet her on 
that auspicious day which saw her first appearance in the 
Hofburg. 

The marriage took place three days later in the chapel 
of the Hofburg. It was a scene to be remembered as 
long as memory lasts. During the first few months after 
the wedding Elisabeth was the most popular figure in 
Vienna. The whole of Austria, indeed, doted upon its 
new Empress and her radiant beauty. It seemed at first, 
moreover, contrary to expectation, that the Sovereign 
was going to settle down to the quiet joys of domestic 
life, subdued by her gentle and girlish nature. Unfor- 
tunately this happiness, which Elisabeth remembered and 
cherished all through her life, was of short duration — as 
brief as it had been intense. The disruption was largely 
the work of the Archduchess Sophy, who, as one writer 
has put it, " transformed the Eden into which Elisabeth 
thought herself transported, into a hell whence she tried 
vainly to escape." Francis Joseph should never have 
allowed his mother to interfere so drastically with his 

26 



Elisabeth becomes Disillusioned 

married life. But he had really nothing in common with 
his wife, and moreover was a slave to the iron etiquette 
of the Austrian Court and its high priestess, his mother. 
Elisabeth entered upon her new life with high 
thoughts as to its responsibilities and its possibilities for 
doing good. If she had been allowed her own way she 
would have spent much of her time in relieving distress 
and soothing the sorrows of her subjects, but she soon 
found that she was curbed in her every action. She was 
highly indignant at first at the hampering restrictions of 
an etiquette so severe that every action of her daily life 
became subordinated to it and dependent upon its rules. 
A tide of anger soon succeeded the indignation, an anger 
specially directed against the Archduchess Sophy, who 
seemed to the young Empress to be the prime mover in 
this conspiracy of repression. In this, however, she was 
unjust ; quite truly the Archduchess directed matters, but 
she did so out of deference to the heartless rules which 
had existed for centuries among the Habsburgs. When- 
ever the young Empress wanted to go here or desired to 
go there, or do this or that, she was met with an attendant 
or the Archduchess, who either remonstrated or pointed 
out that she must be accompanied, or it was impossible 
for the Empress of Austria to do so and so. The Empress 
appealed to her husband, only to find that where she had 
refused to bend to the rigid etiquette, the Archduchess 
had forestalled her and impressed upon Francis Joseph 
the necessity of laying his commands upon Elisabeth to 

regard with strict obedience all the commands of Habs- 

27 



The Austrian Court from Within 

burg Court ceremoiiial, even though it did kill indi- 
viduality and all human emotions. 

The effect of all this treatment upon the high-spirited 
girl can be imagined. Disgusted at being systematically 
treated as a child, she began to hate ferociously everything 
around her, not excepting her husband, and particularly 
the Archduchess Sophy. Had anyone taken the trouble 
to explain to her the iron demands of the Court etiquette 
things might have been different, but no one thought it 
worth while, not even her husband, who had drifted back 
into his old courses, leaving his child- wife to discover too 
late that he had only been amusing himself with her. 
Torn by the love she still held for the unworthy Francis 
Joseph, and the conflicting passion the knowledge of his 
attentions in other directions aroused, the Empress, who 
was proud and spirited, refused to complain ; she deter- 
mined to live her own life, and henceforth proceeded to 
map out her existence in supreme disregard of those 
around her. As an outcome the Empress Elisabeth 
developed a taste for solitude which gave rise to many 
misapprehensions on the part of friends, and unjust sus- 
picions from those who were too ready to blacken the 
sweet purity of her character. Of course, this was made 
known to her, but she disdained either to notice them or 
to alter the course of her life, forgetting that calumny 
can even sully the reputation of an angel. 

The Emperor Francis Joseph soon disinterested him- 
self altogether from his wife's affairs, except when he was 

called upon by his mother to bring her to account for some 

28 



Francis Joseph and Politics 

infraction of archaic regulations. The children of the 
marriage were placed under the care of the Archduchess, 
and Elisabeth only allowed to see them at stated intervals 
and seldom alone. At last the health of the Empress 
broke down entirely, and she was compelled to spend 
several winters abroad, which completed the breach 
between her and the Emperor. 

Notwithstanding, the Empress did not evade her duty 
to the Empire in moments of crisis, and when it was 
necessary for her to appear beside her husband on special 
State occasions she did so with grace and dignity. During 
the war with France in 1859, as well as during those 
months, few but full of destiny, when the battle of Sadowa 
threw the Habsburgs out of the German Confederation, 
Elisabeth remained in Vienna and fulfilled all the obliga- 
tions of her position. Although she had grown to despise 
her husband, she knew that her place was beside him, and 
that in the hour of his need it would be dishonourable to 
desert him. 

In political matters the Empress held entirely aloof, 
more so, perhaps, because Francis Joseph prided himself 
upon his acumen in handling affairs of a political nature. 
He was aided in this delusion by the members of his Court 
and the poHticians to whom he Hstened, who all flattered 
him and carried out his whims in utter disregard to their 
effect upon the State. It is not remarkable, therefore, 
that the most appalling calamities befel Austria, disasters 
which have passed into history. Of one such disaster the 
end is still on the knees of the gods ; it may quite well 

29 



The Austrian Court from Within 

end for ever the rule of the Habsburgs. Throughout his 
long reign Francis Joseph has been in the hands of his 
Ministers, except on occasions when he has determined 
upon independent action, and whenever he has done so 
the result has been lamentable. After the defeat of 
Sadowa he allowed himself to be persuaded to shake hands 
with his triumphant foe, for the sole reason that in his 
heart he longed for the opportunity to strike a blow at 
Russia in order to wrest from her the preponderance of 
power in the Near East which he cherished as belonging 
to him alone. This hatred of Russia has been the only 
sentiment to which the Emperor Francis Joseph has 
remained faithful. 

In his family life he has never been true to the ties of 
blood. Quite likely, had he been more human in his 
treatment of the Crown Prince Rudolph, the tragedy 
which was enacted at Mayerling would not have taken 
place. And, too, it was freely said at the time, that the 
main reason of his brother Maximilian accepting the 
throne of Mexico, was to get away from the influence and 
repression of his brother Francis Joseph, whose jealousy 
had been aroused by the popularity of Maximilian at the 
time he acted as viceroy at Milan. 

One of the favourite claims of the Emperor Francis 

Joseph is that he was the man who conceived and carried 

into execution the Triple Alliance. He shut his eyes to 

the knowledge that Bismarck framed its provisions, and 

that Count Andrassy carried the thing to practical issue. 

To this day he maintains that he suggested the whole 

30 



Austria a Pawn 

thing to the old King William I. of Prussia. As a matter 
of fact, Bismarck knew with whom he had to deal, and 
made use of the Austrian Emperor's vanity in this way 
so as to be able to shelter behind him at need. 

In the same way Austria has been made use of in the 
Great War. No student of European politics will deny 
that during the last twenty-five years the war was carefully 
planned and prepared by Germany, and that Austria has 
been but a pawn in the terrible game, used by the Hohen- 
zoUern according to the necessities of the moment. On 
her own account Austria would never have dared to 
present the fateful ultimatum to Servia, and when the die 
was cast she was utterly unable to hold her own against 
the troops of the little country until German soldiers had 
come to her assistance. Yet, despite it all, in his mind 
the old Emperor firmly believes that he is guiding the 
nations to victory, and that in the end the Habsburgs will 
regain supremacy in Germany, with the Hohenzollerns as 
their vassals. He is quite happy in this thought, and 
firmly convinced that the future will prove him right. 
Even if he sees the end of hostilities and the establish- 
ment of peace on a basis which will upset all his vain 
imaginings of Habsburg power and might, he will be 
quite satisfied that the way things turn out will be due 
to some premature and foolish blundering on the part of 
" that impetuously rash youth," as he thinks William 
II., and go to his grave certain that he could have 
arranged matters much more satisfactorily. 



31 



CHAPTER II 

THE EMPRESS ELISABETH 

IN all Europe no queen has excited so much interest as 
the Empress EHsabeth of Austria. Even with her un- 
timely death at the hands of an assassin the interest did 
not cease; if anything it increased, and has not yet 
vanished. She exercised an extraordinary fascination, 
owing to her unusual beauty and the strength and vivacity 
of her mind. To this add the mystery of her life and her 
enigmatic personality, and one begins to understand the 
magnetic power of this original creature. 

Several books have been written of recent years which 
have to do with the Empress, and affect to portray her 
inner life and her true character. But the book still re- 
mains to be written which does these things with full 
knowledge. 

It is certain that Elisabeth of Bavaria was a strange 

woman of energetic mind and character. It is the more 

remarkable, therefore, that an unkind fate should have 

linked her life with that rigid and cold Court of the Habs- 

burgs. She had never been able to reconcile herself to the 

tameness of its everyday life. The vivid and imaginative 

temperament which she inherited from her Wittelsbach 

descent led her to believe that she could always live in a 

32 



The Empress and Her Children 

fairyland of her own, a world in which her life was occu- 
pied in performing good and charitable actions toward her 
subjects. It was certainly difficult to understand such a 
being, more difficult still to appreciate her; but to con- 
clude from her eccentricities that the Empress was not 
faithful as a wife and pure as a woman is cruelly false. 

The Empress had been unhappy as a wife and disap- 
pointed as a mother, but she always remained fond of her 
children and as affectionate toward her husband as cir- 
cumstances permitted, for she had a high sense of the 
duties of wifehood and strove to keep to her part of thd 
marital contract despite the irregularities of the Emperor. 
At the same time she had a contempt for the conventions 
of life, which led her to disregard and detest the etiquette 
that surrounded her and crabbed her freedom. 

Court life jarred upon the Empress Elisabeth's nerves, 
and made her long the more for mental and personal 
freedom. An unfettered life was essential to her nature. 
It had thrived during her early years among the wild 
Bavarian Alps, upon the open freshness of her native hills, 
and her soul had grown beautiful by close intercourse with 
the delights of Nature as she revelled in the forests and 
wild scenery surrounding her home. She would have 
been perfectly happy with the proverbial ' ' love in a 
cottage ' ' had Fate been in the mood to confer such an 
existence upon her. At first she was amused at the pomp 
and luxury which surrounded her as Empress, and played 
with the unwonted wealth then at her disposal by her 
marriage, as a child does with a gift of fruit 5 bestowing it 
D 33 



The Austrian Court from Within 

upon whomsoever she pleased. But she soon discovered 
that these things left her soul unsatisfied, as it was forced 
upon her that her heart was empty and bare of the love 
which an Emperor had professed. 

Having given her love to the gay young man who had 
made such rapid capture of her unsophisticated innocence, 
her proud and haughty nature rebelled against unrequital, 
and her disappointment was cruelly hard to bear. She 
had wanted to become her husband's companion in a real 
sense, to share the responsibilities of his high estate and 
to be the good angel always at his side to point out the! 
path of justice and mercy. She had hardly been married 
three months ere she found out that all this was a myth 
of her own fond imaginings, and that Francis Joseph was 
entirely uninfluenced by her in his personal life and in his 
plans for the country at large. She found out later too 
that the Emperor had allowed his mother to retain un- 
challenged her sway of the domestic side of the Royal 
household, and that she as Empress had no power over 
her own servants or even her own children. 

The Archduchess also constituted herself her daughter- 
in-law's most harassing critic. She was hardly the woman 
to understand a girl who was all heart and impulse, who 
would laugh one moment and cry the next, and whose 
warm, loving heart was full of noble intentions and 
loving desires. The Archduchess thwarted her daughter- 
in-law at every step, complained against her to the Em- 
peror, and never lost an opportunity of emphasising to 

Francis Joseph that his wife was a raw, uncultivated 

34 




EMPRESS ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA 



I 



The Empress in Society 

creature whom it was necessary to mould into a strict 
observance of what was required of her by her position as 
an Empress of the House of Habsburg. The Emperor's 
mother would have liked to transform Elisabeth into a 
wooden Empress, always smiling, always extending her 
hand to be kissed, but without initiative or will, and 
entirely dependent upon others. This, however, was 
precisely the kind of thing to which an ardent nature, 
such as Elisabeth possessed, could never submit, and 
domestic scenes of a most painful character were frequent. 

These squabbles, in which, not unnaturally, Elisabeth 
mostly failed to discomfit her more experienced relative, 
soon became common property in Court circles, and rulers 
of Vienna society, following the lead of the Archduchess 
Sophy, were not slow to treat the Empress as a nonentity, 
continuing to look to her mother-in-law as the real leader 
at Court. Unfortunately, Elisabeth did not think it worth 
while contesting the situation with the usurper, having a 
hearty disdain for the petty intrigues daily going on 
around her, and having by this time learned the uselessness 
of appealing to her husband. 

In spite of her beauty and charm the Empress had not 
made herself liked among the haughty and ceremonious 
aristocracy of the capital, though she was adored by the 
common people of Austria and, too, in later years, as she 
travelled among them, by the Hungarians, among whom 
she was happier than anywhere else save in her beloved 
native land. Often she thought with a sigh of the delicious 
liberty she enjoyed amid the solitudes and beauties of 

35 



The Austrian Court from Within 

the lovely woods which surrounded her stately home at 
Possenhofen. In her new fatherland, with the exception 
of her brother-in-law Maximilian, she had no real friends ; 
and even the Archduke's friendship led to difficulties and 
unjust thoughts, owing to the enmity which Francis 
Joseph had long cherished in regard to his brother. Thus 
forced to become self-centred in the sense of finding 
relaxations which she could enjoy in solitude, the Empress 
took refuge in study, which was always congenial to her. 
As soon as this became known, it was attributed to affec- 
tation. She turned to riding, which she had loved from 
a child ; and Society ridiculed her action as being undigni- 
fied. She then ceased to repress her love for books and 
flowers and art and the lovely things of the world, and 
she was at once condemned as extravagant and irritatingly 
superior. In short, everything she did to save herself 
from a wooden existence was turned and twisted to her 
disadvantage and discredit until at last, thoroughly dis- 
heartened and disgusted, she decided that whatever she 
did she would be misrepresented ; therefore, she would 
live her own life in her own way, without troubling in 
the least about what her detractors, or even the world at 
large, might say. 

In regard to her children, whom she had hoped to 
bring up according to her own ideas and to keep always 
about her, she received bitter disappointment. They 
were taken from her and given into the care of the 
Archduchess, who had explained to her son that it was 

impossible to allow so irresponsible and young a mortal 

36 



Empress Elisabeth at Madeira 

as the Empress to have a free hand in the rearing of her 

boy and girl, lest she should bring them up according to 

her own extravagant ideas and without reverence for the 

iron traditions of the Habsburgs. The Emperor had 

entered fully into his mother's views and arranged matters 

so that Elisabeth became almost a stranger to her own 

children, deprived of the love of those to whom she had 

hoped to turn as a solace from the sorrows which her 

marriage had brought. 

It is little wonder that under these circumstances she 

soon found the pretence of ill-health to enable her to 

escape from the daily slights, and sought the distraction 

of travel in foreign lands. Had she not done so she would 

probably have shared the fate of others of the House of 

Wittelsbach — solitude and quiet saved her mind from 

losing its balance. The doctors sent her to Madeira, which 

was not then so fashionable as it has since become, and 

there health returned to her, and her mind recovered that 

moral strength which had been sapped by struggles of 

spirit against the awful restrictions of the chilly etiquette 

of the Court of Vienna. Amid the beautiful country and 

the warm restfulness of Madeira the Empress Elisabeth 

learned resignation, even if submission did not come, and 

calHng to her aid her proud reserve, she made up her 

mind to take up the thread of her life once more where 

she had let it fall. In doing so she became entirely 

indifferent to praise or blame, only allowing her conscience 

to be her judge and giving no account of her actions to 

anyone. 

37 



The Austrian Court from Within 

When she returned to Austria she surprised everyone 
by the expression of set sadness and melancholy which 
had taken the place of the old animation and interest 
which had made her so exceedingly charming. She 
assumed a cold dignity which bordered upon cynicism, 
and which imposed even upon the haughtiness of her 
mother-in-law, who was surprised to find that the child 
whom she had successfully bullied was now capable of 
holding her own and making her mother-in-law feel that, 
after all, she was not Empress. Elisabeth was always 
courtesy itself toward the Archduchess, but she raised an 
icy barrier between them that even the audacity and the 
imperiousness of the latter failed to penetrate. The 
Empress Elisabeth brushed the Archduchess aside with 
the same ease that she took precedence over her at State 
ceremonies. 

The only point upon which the Empress Elisabeth did 
not succeeded in thwarting the old Archduchess was that 
which was closest to her own heart : the education of her 
children, which was proceeding along the archaic lines 
prescribed for centuries. 

On her return from Madeira she once more appealed 
to the Emperor to allow her son and daughter to remain 
under her immediate care. She met a refusal couched in 
such unthinkable terms that she never again renewed the 
subject. From that day she dissociated herself entirely 
from the education and rearing of her offspring. Quite 
expectedly, the world thereupon said that the Empress 

was an unnatural mother who hated the children to whom 

38 



An Attempt at Reconciliation 

she had given birth. This and many other legends were 
accredited concerning EHsabeth, who disdained to give 
the He to the numerous untruths that were being circulated 
concerning her person and tastes. She lived her own life, 
in which none of those who ought to have played the 
principal part were allowed an entrance, and when the 
Emperor once attempted a reconciliation she made him 
understand that she was no longer willing to give to his 
throne heirs that would belong to the State and him, 
but not to the mother who had brought them into the 
-world. She was never a faithless wife, but for many years 
she remained wife in name only, and was truly, as she 
once said in a moment of bitterness, " une Imperatrice 
de parade.'^ 

Elisabeth of Bavaria was made for something better 
than Fate had decreed for her life. She had in her the 
stuff of which great sovereigns are made, and it was 
through no fault of hers that all attempts to live up to 
her great position were repulsed by the pitiless hand of 
her mother-in-law, abetted by the Emperor Francis 
Joseph. Serene and brave as she appeared to the world 
that watched her, she had terrible hours of discourage- 
ment, during which she struggled bravely against the 
storms that were perennially shaking her heart. This 
necessity of shutting up within her bosom all her feelings 
could not but exercise a baneful influence upon her con- 
duct and upon her deportment. She could not hide the 
contempt which she felt for her life, and she became 

cynical owing to the impossibility of being natural. Yet 

39 



The Austrian Court from Within 

all the time she suffered terribly, because she was unable 
to give way to the generous and noble impulses of her 
heart. 

In one of the books written in recent years about the 
Austrian Court is repeated every kind of silly gossip 
calculated to lower the beautiful womanliness of the 
Empress Elisabeth in the estimation of the reader. If 
one were only to believe it, the Empress was absolutely 
devoid of heart, absorbed in the most selfish pursuits, and 
putting before everything else in the world the care of 
her own person and of her own beauty. In reality the 
Empress did no such thing. She had some curious notions 
concerning her hair and the manner in which it was to be 
treated, dressed and arranged ; but, apart from this very 
innocent originality, she evinced no signs of inordinate 
solicitude for her own beauty. Like all artistic people, 
she had an innate love for everything that was beautiful, 
be it in nature or in humanity, but she was far too clever 
a woman to be content to spend her time in self -admira- 
tion. Had she done so she would have been far happier 
than was the case and would, at least, have found some 
solace in her life. But her memory outlives untruth. 

As time goes on, and especially after certain docu- 
ments, now locked up in the archives of the Hofburg — 
among which are the Empress's own "Recollections" 
— have seen the light of day, the public will have oppor- 
tunity to judge and appreciate this extraordinary woman. 
It is said that it was the intention of the Archduke 

Francis Ferdinand to give publicity to these documents 

40 



Death of Archduchess Sophy 

as soon as he had the power to do so. Whether the idea 
will be followed by the present heir to the throne when 
he succeeds his uncle it is difficult to say. The young 
Archduke belongs to those people of restricted vision who 
can never understand that moral suffering ennobles, and 
perhaps he will think that for the reputation of the Habs- 
burgs it will be more advantageous to allow oblivion to 
fall upon the whole personality of the beautiful Empress 
who entered the Vienna Hofburg one spring morning in 
quejst of a happiness which she was never to find within 
its walls. 

After the death of the Archduchess Sophy the position 
of her daughter-in-law changed considerably, and might, 
perhaps, have become even quite tolerable if she could 
have made up her mind to try to overcome the prejudices 
which had been fostered against her. But Elisabeth had 
been wounded to the quick by the facility with which 
people had turned against her, and she was not of a 
forgiving nature, though by temperament most indulgent. 
She was above taking revenge upon those who had slighted 
or hurt her; she simply ignored them. Hypocrisy was 
hateful to her, and she could no more have smiled upon 
a person whom she knew to be her enemy than she could 
have flown. She decided that, since she had been mis- 
judged, it would be waste of time on her part to attempt 
to convince those who had done so that they had been 
mistaken. It was in such moments that she felt herself 
truly an Empress, placed so far above common mortals 
that it would have appeared an undignified descent to 

41 



The Austrian Court from Within 

confess to knowledge of the vile attacks of which she had 
been the object. She knew very well that she was disliked 
by the aristocracy of Vienna, and she revelled in it, apply- 
ing herself instead to the affection of her Hungarian 
subjects, who, as she was aware, worshipped the very 
ground on which she walked. 

When at Budapest, or in her residence at Godollo, she 
was quite another person than at Schonbrunn or in the 
old rooms of the Hofburg. She allowed herself to be 
natural, and, freed from the trammels of an etiquette 
which she hated more and more every day, she moved 
familiarly among the Hungarian nobility, within whose 
circle she found numerous friends. 

It is no secret that it was owing to the efforts of the 
Empress that a reconciliation was at last effected between 
Francis Joseph and his rebellious subjects of former times. 
It is to be questioned, indeed, whether such a burying of 
the axe could ever have taken place but for the efforts of 
the Empress, who gave proofs on this memorable occasion 
that, when necessary, she could be a clever diplomat and 
a far-seeing politician. It was in circumstances like these 
that the Empress showed the generosity of her nature. 
Forgetting all the slights and the insults which the 
Emperor had heaped upon her, she only remembered her 
duty to him and to the monarchy of which her son was 
the heir, and freely gave them the help of her high intel- 
lect and of her popularity. One could meet her beside 
her husband whenever danger threatened him or the 

Empire over which he ruled. It was in such dark hours, 

42 



The Last Years of Elisabeth 

when one misfortune after another was falling on the 
ancient House of Habsburg, that Elisabeth of Bavaria, 
ignoring everything else, remembered that, despite the 
spurnings and denials to which she had been subjected, her 
place was on the throne to which she had been raised. 

In the last years of her life, and especially after the 
tragic death of the Crown Prince Rudolph, the relations 
of the Empress with Francis Joseph became more friendly 
than they had been for a long time. The bereaved father 
and mother, who had lost their best hope in life through 
a catastrophe the like of which has never yet been recorded 
in the annals of any Royal House, were drawn together in 
those dark hours of agony by a grief shared in common. 

The selfish nature of the Emperor, however, soon 
regained the upper hand ; yet, nevertheless, the feelings 
of respect with which his wife had inspired him at this 
period of sorrow, owing to the dignity of her attitude and 
the generosity with which she had laid aside her own 
wrongs to stand by him, made him vaguely realise what 
a treasure he had had in this woman's heart, and brought 
him some regret that he had himself thrust her from him. 
He could not undo the past, but he became more in- 
dulgent in regard to the independence manifested by his 
consort, and interfered no more with her liberty. The 
Empress found herself free at last to do what she liked 
and to spend her time as suited her own inclinations 
without being subjected to everlasting remonstrations. 
From that day forward Francis Joseph also began to 

consult the Empress in political matters more than he 

43 



The Austrian Court from Within 

had ever done before, seeking her advice and opinions in 
the difficulties which arose from time to time. He dis- 
covered that her common sense, which, in spite of her 
ideahstic instincts, was very great, could be of consider- 
able use to him, and that her soft manners brought to him 
friends he could never have made for himself without her 
aid. 

The Empress, in spite of her preference for the solitude 
into which she had retired more than ever after the drama 
of Mayerling, twice emerged from the shadows. The first 
time was on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her coronation 
as Queen of Hungary, when she appeared, together with 
the Emperor, at the festivities which took place at Buda- 
pest to celebrate the event. The second occasion was 
during the famous visit of the Tsar Nicholas II. and the 
Tsaritza to Vienna, just after their marriage. This was 
the last time the Hofburg saw her appear in all the pomp 
of her royal position, wearing the most precious of the 
jewels of state, regal and splendid in the black garments 
she then always wore. Those who were present on this 
memorable occasion say that her appearance excited even 
more curiosity than that of the newly wedded Tsaritza, 
in spite of the great renown of the Empress of Russia as 
a beauty. After that day the world saw her no more, 
and Ehsabeth vanished, nevermore receiving the homage 
due to her as a sovereign until that sad day when she 
reposed in her coffin. 

Very soon after the marriage of her second daughter, 

the Archduchess Marie Valerie, to the Archduke Franz 

44 



A Visit to Paris 

Salvator, the health of the Empress Ehsabeth began to 
fail. She felt acutely the separation from her youngest 
child, the only one she had been allowed to keep beside 
her and to bring up according to her own ideas. Her 
love of wandering gained the upper hand once more, and 
she carried her sorrows and fancies all over the world, 
trying to find solace in new scenes and foreign countries. 
She spent some time in Paris with her sisters, the Queen 
of Naples and the Duchess d'Alengon, who lived in the 
French capital. 

She enjoyed her stay in the great city all the more 
because she indulged in the illusion that she was unknown, 
and was therefore able to lead the kind of existence which 
appealed most to her restless heart. The Empress also 
visited the Riviera, where the sunshine and warmth of 
the climate was a perpetual joy to her. The wonderful 
air and the wealth of flowers in that happy corner of 
Europe spoke to her imagination a language that it loved 
to hear. 

The Emperor came to see her once or twice at the 
Hotel du Cap Martin, where she resided, and during the 
quiet walks which they took together in the olive woods 
which surround the place Elisabeth became more charit- 
able in heart toward the man who, instead of the love for 
which her whole soul had craved, had given the barren 
splendour of a crown which, for her, had so often been 
one of thorns. Seeing her thus, lonely and beautiful in 
spite of her years and the griefs that had shadowed her 

existence, he must surely also have felt some regret that 

45 



The Austrian Court from Within 

he had misjudged her. At least we must hope that such 
was the case, because if he allowed her to guess that he 
felt some such sentiment it might have given consolation 
to the broken heart of the poor Empress. 

The story of her last hours is too well known to repeat 
here. She found rest at last after her stormy life, which 
began so brilliantly and ended in tempest. For years 
Elisabeth had been tossed from side to side in the vain 
quest of a peace which the grave alone gave her, suddenly 
and unexpectedly. The shores of Corfu, which she loved 
so well, see her no longer; the Achilleion, which she 
built with such enthusiasm, has passed into hands that 
she would probably never have consented to have touched 
again had she guessed they would one day be dyed with 
so much blood. 

All the emotions that filled the soul of Elisabeth, 
Empress of Austria, all the poetry which lay hidden in 
her heart, all the sorrows which she had to bear, and the 
few joys that were granted to her — all came to an end. 
She lies in the cold vault of the Capuchin Church, beside 
the coffin of the son whose tragic death changed her into 
a Mater Dolorosa, wandering with her despair all over the 
earth, and never again smiling on a world that had neither 
appreciated nor understood her. Her body was taken 
back to Vienna with every manifestation of grief on the 
part of the people of Geneva. An Imperial train was 
sent from Vienna to carry her remains back to Austria. 
Officials, ladies-in-waiting, high dignitaries, started for 
Switzerland to escort their Empress on this last, mournful 

46 



The Supreme Good-bye 

journey, but none among her family accompanied them. 
When she was placed in her coffin, neither her husband 
nor her daughter were present to give a last kiss, to say 
a last prayer over her mortal remains. Francis Joseph 
was reported to be ill; the Archduchess Marie Valerie 
was said to be in attendance upon him. Elisabeth of 
Bavaria only found mercenary hands to lay her on her bier, 
to bid her the supreme good-bye. She had been lonely in 
her life, and her death was also a lonely one. Perhaps, 
after all, it was what she would have preferred. Who 
knows } 



47 



CHAPTER III 

THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 

FEW Royal Houses can boast of so many Princes and 
Princesses as that of Habsburg. To-day there are no 
fewer than thirty-one Archdukes and fifty Archduchesses, 
all standing more or less in the direct line of succession to 
the throne. This populous family circle, which, by the 
way, is far from being happy or united, is entirely under 
the sway of the Emperor Francis Joseph, on whom alone 
its members are dependent for their yearly allowance, and 
who, according to the statutes that rule the reigning 
house, is the sole master of their fate. The Emperor can 
deprive them of their rank and privileges, or even have 
them imprisoned at his will, without any chance of protest 
against whatever decisions it may please him to make. 

As can be imagined, tyranny of this kind, when 
harshly exercised — as it has been — is the direct cause of a 
multitude of intrigues, the details of some few of which 
with but little variation repeat themselves in books about 
the Habsburgs. The descendants of Marie Therese have 
never been famed for puritanical virtues. They have not 
even misbehaved with dignity or with propriety, but 
simply lowered themselves to the level of the companions 

which they found for themselves, for no other reason than 

48 



Archduke Maximilian 

that it was amusing and appealed to their coarse tastes. 
The Emperor himself gave them no high example to 
follow, though he simulated affront, surprise, and grief 
whenever it came to his ears that one of his numerous 
nephews or cousins had succumbed to the temptation of 
sacrificing to those gods whom it is not usual to mention 
in polite society. They failed to appreciate the foolishness 
of believing that what the Emperor allowed himself to 
perform his relatives were also at liberty to do. The 
result was that they paid for the milk spilt, while the 
Sovereign remained peacefully in possession of all the 
facilities which his unapproachable position allotted to 
him, secure in the fact that he was entirely above the 
criticisms of men and the disapproval of his own family. 

Francis Joseph had three brothers. Of these, the 
cleverest was undoubtedly the charming, fascinating, and 
amiable Archduke Maximilian, whom a cruel fate was to 
send to die on Mexican shores. This Prince had none of 
the failings and all the qualities of the House of Habsburg 
Lorraine. He had profited far better than any of his 
brothers by the lessons which their mother, the Arch- 
duchess Sophy, had instilled into their minds, and he had 
proved an able pupil to the masters who had been respon- 
sible for his education. A sailor by profession, he had 
voyaged all over the world, during which he had won the 
affection of superiors and subordinates. While acting as 
Viceroy of Milan he had succeeded in making himself 
popular, even in Italy, where the name of Austria was 

violently detested. Had Archduke Maximilian be«n 
E 49 



The Austrian Court from Within 

allowed to do as he liked, and to rule the countries con- 
fided to his care along the lines of the liberal principles 
which he professed, it is likely that the whole course of 
history in that part of Italy would have turned out differ- 
ently, and that the House of Savoy would have found it 
more difficult than was the case to bring about Italian 
Unity. But when the Emperor Francis Joseph and the 
Empress visited their Italian dominions in the early days 
of their married life, Francis Joseph became jealous 
of the affection with which the Archduke was viewed 
by the population of the Duchy of Milan, and decided to 
remove him to another sphere, with the result that the 
war of 1859 with France and the Kingdom of Sardinia 
put an end to Austrian domination in the Peninsula. 

In the meanwhile Maximilian, at the time still Viceroy 
of Lombardy, had married the Princess Charlotte of 
Belgium, the only daughter of King Leopold I., and an 
exceedingly clever and ambitious woman. He retired 
with his bride to Miramar, on the Adriatic Sea, where 
he had built for himself a fairy-like residence in which 
he hoped to forget the worries and difficulties of his brief 
sojourn in Italy. 

The Archduke Maximihan was an attractive man, with 
all the instincts of an ancient knight of chivalry, always 
ready to put his person and his sword at the service of 
the oppressed ones of this earth. His dreamy, idealistic 
character had much in common with that of his sister-in- 
law, and the two became great friends, a friendship which 

was shared by the Archduchess Charlotte. When the 

50 



The Empress at Miramar 

Empress returned to Europe, after wintering at Madeira, 
she landed at Trieste and repaired to Miramar, where she 
spent some happy weeks with the owners of this lovely 
place. When she returned to her gilded captivity at the 
Hofburg, and to the companionship of Francis Joseph 
and his haughty and imperious mother, her impatience 
and grief at being compelled to leave the cordial hospi- 
tality of Miramar was interpreted in a most malicious 
sense by busybodies eager to make bad blood between 
the Emperor and his consort. The vanity of Francis 
Joseph was hurt at the thought that his brother might 
have won some affection from the lonely woman who had 
hitherto met with so little sympathy in her own family 
circle, in spite of the exalted position that she occupied 
in it. 

After the Empress had returned from Miramar 
petty persecutions began to be exercised against the 
Archduke Maximilian, which at last led to the exchange 
of a violent correspondence between him and Francis 
Joseph. The result of this quarrel would have probably 
led to the banishment of Maximilian from the Court, and 
also from Miramar, had not unforeseen circumstances 
caused the crown of Mexico to be offered to Maxi- 
milian. He accepted it only because he felt his position 
had become so intolerable that, exile for exile, he and 
his wife — with whom he was in perfect accord on that 
point as well as on all others — preferred one across the 
seas, where at least they would be, as they thought, 

masters of their actions, to the uncertainty of an existence 

51 



The Austrian Court from Within 

which they knew but too well might become absolutely 
intolerable. They found themselves objects of continual 
suspicion in Austria, and were but too well aware that 
the situation might easily provoke a tragedy which their 
feelings of family pride, and their attachment to the 
traditions of their race, made it a duty for them to try 
to avert by every means in their power. 

As for the Emperor Francis Joseph, it was with very 
mixed feehngs that he heard about the new prospect that 
opened up before his brother; he was glad, nevertheless, 
to have him out of the way. On the other hand, he hated 
to think that Maximilian would become an Emperor as 
he was. Had he dared, he would have objected to this 
plan of the Archduke, but then he found suddenly before 
him an adversary on whom he had not reckoned. The 
ambitious soul of the Archduchess Sophy, his mother, 
saw in the elevation to Imperial rank of her second son 
an addition to the family glory of the Habsburgs, as well 
as an advantageous establishment for him ; therefore, she 
was heart and soul in favour of the proposal. When the 
Emperor declared he would not give his consent to the 
proposition brought by the Mexican deputies, she inter- 
fered and boldly told him that he had always shown 
himself a bad brother to Maximilian, and that if he 
persisted in his wish to deprive her second son of advan- 
tages that would allow him to have an independent 
position, she would leave Vienna immediately and retire 
to Miramar for the rest of her days. This would have 
pleased neither Francis Joseph nor his Ministers. They 

52 



Off to Mexico 

well knew the Archduchess was capable of being a most 
dangerous enemy, and by her opposition to the Govern- 
ment might have brought about serious difficulties. 

The possibility of a revolution in Hungary, where the 
person of the Emperor at that time was most unpopular, 
was still a serious contingency. Had it come to pass it 
would have robbed Francis Joseph of his kingship and 
elevated in his place, as King of Hungary, the Archduke 
Maximihan. The Ministers at Vienna admitted that the 
idea was not such a preposterous thing as it might appear 
at first sight. The advisers of the Austrian Sovereign, 
therefore, told him that, all things considered, it would 
be better to allow the Archduke to start for his Mexican 
adventure, but only on the condition that he renounced 
once for all his rights to the succession of the Imperial 
throne, and also the fortune to which he was entitled as 
an Archduke. A further provision they advocated was 
that, in case events prevented Maximilian from remain- 
ing in Mexico, he was not to return or to settle in his 
native land without the express permission of the 
Emperor. 

The conditions put forward by his Ministers, as being 
the only ones under which he would give his consent to 
the Archduke's departure, were accepted by Francis 
Joseph and submitted to Maximilian, rather to the con- 
sternation of the latter. But things were already too 
far advanced for him to go back. He had given his word 
to the Mexican deputies, and he also felt that if he now 

recoiled from the regal state he had assumed his already 

53 



The Austrian Court from Within 

difficult existence would become even more intolerable. 
With the consciousness, therefore, that since the die was 
cast there was no retracing his steps, he declared himself 
ready to subscribe to his brother's wishes, with the one 
reservation of retaining possession of his beloved Miramar 
for his life time; but the favour was refused — Francis 
Joseph had long envied Maximilian his beautiful palace. 

Charlotte felt the injustice more than her husband. 
She refused to go to Vienna to take solemn leave of the 
Imperial Family, and a meeting was arranged at Gratz 
between her and her mother-in-law. The Archduchess 
Sophy, accompanied by the Empress Elisabeth, travelled 
thither to wish the new Sovereigns a last good-bye. 
Francis Joseph, however, declared that he would come to 
Miramar to accept his brother's renunciation of his patri- 
monial rights and to bid him God-speed. His visit, which 
was surrounded by all the pomp required by etiquette on 
such occasions, passed off very stiffly and with much 
ceremony on both sides. But when the Emperor, who 
had been accompanied by the Archduke Maximilian to 
the little railway station in the park of the castle, was 
about to board the train that was to take him back to 
Vienna a sudden remorse seized him, and, turning round, 
he just said one word, " Max," and opened his arms to 
the Archduke. The latter threw himself in them, and 
for the last time in their lives the two brothers exchanged 
a warm and fervent embrace. 

Three years later the last act of the Queretaro tragedy 

was about to take place, and the hapless Mexican Monarch 

54 



Maximilian Put to Death 

was soon to be brutally put to death by Juarez. For how 

much did the memory of that embrace on the station at 

Miramar count ? 

When things came to this pass with Maximilian the 

Archduchess Sophy implored Francis Joseph to make an 

effort to save his brother, and to threaten the Emperor 

Napoleon with a break of the diplomatic relations between 

Austria and France in case he persisted in his design to 

bring back to Europe the corps of French troops which 

were the only defence left to Maximilian against his 

enemies. Francis Joseph brutally declined, and declared 

that the matter did not concern him any longer — his 

brother had made his own choice, and no one else was 

responsible for his lack of success. He reminded his 

mother, with that brutality to which he sometimes gave 

way in spite of the restraint which he exercised in her 

presence, that he had always been averse to the plan 

of sending an Archduke to try his fate among a land 

of savages. Unworthy motives, he proclaimed, had been 

ascribed to his opposition ; he could now no longer 

be of any use to his brother, and, moreover, he had to 

consider before everything else the interests of Austria. 

He refused even to allow his Ministers at Mexico to take 

any official steps in the hope of saving Maximilian, giving 

as his excuse that it was ridiculous to threaten when it 

was impossible to carry threats into effect, and, besides, 

it was beneath his dignity to plead with a brute like the 

leader of the Mexican rebels. 

In spite, however, of the opposition of the Emperor 

55 



The Austrian Court from Within 

Francis Joseph, an effort was made by the Austrian 
legation in Mexico. This was at the instigation of the 
Archduchess Sophy, but so feebly was it carried out that 
it was interpreted rather as a matter of form than as a 
real desire to snatch the victim from the hands of Juarez. 

After the heroic death of Maximilian the Empress 
Charlotte became insane. The Emperor Francis Joseph 
shed many tears in public and expressed himself as 
unutterably shocked at the awful tragedy of Maximilian's 
end, but in truth his grief was essentially conventional, 
and interfered neither with his sleep nor his digestion. 
The horror of the drama, in which his brother lost his life 
and his sister-in-law her reason, made little impression on 
the placidity of Francis Joseph, and when the remains 
of the hapless Mexican Sovereign were at last given up 
by Juarez, and brought back to Vienna, Francis Joseph 
considered that he had performed all the duties which 
nature and the exigencies of Society expected of him. 
He laid a beautiful wreath upon his coffin, and after this 
last proof of remembrance considered himself free from 
all further obligations in regard to the memory of a brother 
he had never loved but often feared. 

The Empress Charlotte was removed to Belgium by 
her own relatives, and Miramar became the property of 
the Austrian Crown. During her lifetime the Empress 
Elisabeth used sometimes to go and spend a few weeks 
there, buried in the remembrance of a past that she, at 
least, had not forgotten. The Crown Princess Stephanie 

was also fond of this silent, solitary royal palace, where 

56 



Archduke Charles Louis 

the murmurs of the sea that surrounded it seemed per- 
petually to mourn for the master who had gone from it 
for ever on a beautiful summer day that for him was to 
have no morrow. It was at Miramar that Stephanie was 
married to her second husband, Count Lonyay. Later 
on the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his consort, the 
Duchess of Hohenberg, used to visit the castle from time 
to time ; but now it lies mostly deserted the whole year 
round. Perhaps it is better so, because no Habsburg 
can really understand all the poetry contained within its 
walls nor the soul of the man who built it with such love 
and care ; whose ghost, if ghosts exist, must surely haunt 
the spot he cherished with such tenderness. 

The next brother of Francis Joseph was the Archduke 
Charles Louis, with whom he always remained upon 
excellent terms, owing probably to the great resemblance 
in their characters and to the fact that the younger one 
always gave in to his elder. In the 'nineties the Arch- 
duke was a fat old man, with courteous manners, an 
immense amount of small talk at his disposition, and 
none of the Habsburg arrogance. Rumour says that he 
was upon bad terms with his nephew, the Archduke 
Rudolph, and that had the latter succeeded to the throne 
of his uncle, he would have lost no occasion to snub 
Charles. 

Fate, however, was kind to Archduke Charles Louis ; 
it successively removed from his path all the people who 
might have proved troublesome to him. He lived an 

entirely commonplace life, which he managed to make 

57 



The Austrian Court from Within 

most comfortable for himself and the reverse for others. 
He was married three times : first, to the Princess 
Margaret of Saxony, who died after giving birth to a 
stillborn infant two years later; his next wife was a 
Princess of Bourbon Sicily, by whom he had three sons, 
of whom the eldest. Archduke Francis Ferdinand, was 
to perish at Sarajevo, while the second. Archduke Otto, 
became the father of the present heir to the Austrian 
Crown. The second wife died from consumption. After 
two years Charles Louis again sought an alliance, which 
he found in the person of one of the most beautiful 
women in Europe — one of the six lovely daughters of the 
Portuguese Pretender, Dom Miguel — the Infanta Marie 
Therese. He tormented, bullied, and generally made her 
life miserable for something like a quarter of a century 
until, to her undoubted relief, a merciful Providence re- 
moved him to a land where, according to all probability, 
Austrian Archdukes do not enjoy the exalted position 
which belonged to them in the world. 

The Archduchess Marie Therese was a very clever 
woman, who managed to attain considerable influence 
not only in Court circles but in the outside world, and 
who, being gifted with wonderful tact, made an admir- 
able stepmother, obtaining her stepchildren's affection 
and respect, and coming to their help whenever it was 
possible to do so. The Archduke Otto, her husband's 
second son, was past praying for, and besides also took 
unto himself a wife who knew very well how to get on 

in life and who did not require the assistance of the 

58 



Archduchess Marie Therese 

Portuguese Infanta to make herself loved and respected. 
But the eldest son of the family, the Archduke Francis 
Ferdinand, found in his father's wife the kindest of 
friends and a valuable help, as well as encouragement in 
the romance which ended in his marriage to the Countess 
Sophy Chotek. 

The Archduchess Marie Therese was the only member 
of the Imperial Family who held her own with the 
Emperor, and who obliged the latter to reckon with her 
opinions and judgments. She contrived in a very short 
time to secure a position of independence and in a certain 
sense to replace the late Archduchess Sophy without, how- 
ever, showing any signs of the imperious temper which 
characterised the latter. Since the death of the Crown 
Prince Rudolph the Empress Elisabeth had definitely 
withdrawn from the social world of Vienna ; she never 
again graced a Court ball with her presence. The Arch- 
duchess Marie Therese took her place, and did the honours 
of the Hofburg by the side of Francis Joseph until her 
own widowhood obliged her to withdraw into the retire- 
ment imposed by Austrian etiquette on an Imperial 
Princess when her husband dies. 

This, however, did not prevent Marie Therese from 

remaining the most important personage in the House of 

Habsburg, one whom even Francis Joseph did not dare 

to contradict. So strong was her position that when it 

was rumoured that she was about to re-marry, and take 

for husband the master of her household, the Count 

Cavriani, not one voice in the whole of Viennese societj' 

59 



The Austrian Court from Within 

dared say a word against her. The report, however, 
turned out to be quite untrue. 

Marie There se is still a power at Court, and though 
she is seldom seen in public, it is to her that one applies 
in the many emergencies inseparable from the existence 
of Royal personages, and it is her advice and opinions 
which prevail in all matters where etiquette comes into 
question. She still lives in Vienna during the winter 
months, whilst her summers are spent at the castle of 
Reichstadt in Bohemia, which she has embellished and 
transformed into a modern habitation where mediaeval 
walls and furniture rival twentieth-century comforts. It 
was at Reichstadt that the marriage of the Archduke 
Francis Ferdinand with Countess Chotek took place, and 
it was largely due to the influence of the former's step- 
mother that it became possible. 

When the Archduchess Isabella turned the unfortu- 
nate Countess Chotek, who had attracted the heir to the 
Austrian monarchy, out of her house, and the young lady 
found every door, including those of her nearest relatives, 
closed against her, it was Marie Therese who went to 
fetch her from the convent at Prague to which she had re- 
tired, and who took her into her own house, pleading her 
cause with the Emperor. She took upon herself, too, all 
the arrangements in connection with the wedding, which 
she insisted was to take place in her own private chapel. 
She it was who fastened on the head of the bride the 
diamond diadem that had formerly belonged to her future 
husband's mother, and once upon a time had adorned 

60 




ARCHDUKE FRANaS FERDINAND AND 
THE DUCHESS OF HOHENBERG 



I 

I 



The Hohenberg Tragedy 

the brow of Queen Caroline of Naples. Her relations 
with the newly married couple whom she had befriended 
remained excellent until the catastrophe of Sarajevo 
claimed them as its victims, and immediately upon hear- 
ing of it she went to Konopischt, where the unfortunate 
children of her stepson and of the Duchess of Hohenberg 
were staying, and herself broke to them the terrible news 
of their parents' horrible death. And when, thanks to 
the intrigues of a certain Prince who is a favourite of the 
Emperor, the funeral of Francis Ferdinand and of his 
wife was celebrated in a way which, to say the least of 
it, was absolutely indecent, Marie Therese was the only 
one who dared tell Francis Joseph to his face what she 
thought of him, as well as declare to him that if he did 
not grant to the sons and daughter of his murdered 
nephew the yearly income usually awarded to Austrian 
Archdukes, she would resign in their favour the allow- 
ance which she drew as the widow of their grandfather. 
The argument proved effective, because her wishes 
were taken into consideration and the future of the 
children assured in a manner befitting their rank and 
station in life. It must here be remarked that had it not 
been for this intervention of the Archduchess the fate of 
these children might have been very different, as the great 
fortune enjoyed by their father as heir of the Duke of 
Modena passed, according to the Duke's will, to the young 
Archduke Karl Franz Joseph until his accession to the 
throne, when it would revert to his youngest son. 

Francis Ferdinand had always been his stepmother's 

61 



The Austrian Court from Within 

favourite, but his other brothers, too, were the object of 
her care and attention. The youngest of the three, 
Ferdinand Charles, who was the best looking of the whole 
family, became the hero of a romance that caused a mild 
sensation in Viennese society. He was of a retiring and 
studious disposition, and did not care for the pleasures 
generally dear to young men of his age. He was very 
much liked for the affability of his manners and his 
absence of affectation, as well as for a great generosity 
and kindness that always made him seek occasions to 
become useful to others. 

Ferdinand sought the society of men capable of 
sympathising with him and of sharing his favourite pur- 
suits. He cared for literature, and had assembled a 
considerable library of well-selected books mostly treat- 
ing of historical and scientific matters. He was the first 
Archduke who was to be seen in the houses of men who 
had made for themselves a name among the learned ones 
of their country, and it was in their company rather than 
in that of the golden youth of Vienna that he could be 
found. As he was a youngest son, his tastes did not enter 
into account at Court, and people did not trouble to make 
any ill-natured reports concerning him to the Emperor. 
Francis Joseph, too, was also supremely indifferent to a 
nephew about whom he never thought, reserving his 
attention for the sons of the Archduke Otto, in whom 
he saw his future successors and whom, as such, he had 
carefully watched by those among his personal attendants 
and friends who cared for that sort of work. 

62 



Love AfiFairs of Ferdinand Charles 

Meanwhile, Ferdinand Charles had met at the house 
of one of the professors at the Vienna University, with 
whom he had struck up a great friendship, a girl who 
captivated his imagination by the charm of her manners 
as well as by her extreme beauty. Her name was Bertha 
Tschuber, and her father was a famous mathematician 
whose fame had gone far beyond the limits of his native 
country. For something like two years the Archduke 
paid his addresses to her and tried to persuade her to 
marry him in secret, as he could hardly hope to obtain 
the sanction of the Emperor to their union. She abso- 
lutely refused to lower herself to what she justly thought 
would be considered in the light of personal mercenary 
aims, and, besides, did not care to run the risk of seeing 
her marriage declared illegal, as it would surely have been 
if it did not receive the Imperial consent. 

It is difficult to say how the matter would have 
ended had not Marie Therese interfered in favour of 
the young people. She took upon herself the task of 
smoothing the obstacles which stood in the way of their 
union, but though she pleaded hard with Francis Joseph 
to induce him to permit a morganatic marriage, she only 
obtained this permission on the condition that the Arch- 
duke would renounce his titles and rank, and would con- 
sent to be known in the future by the name of plain 
Ferdinand Burg, engaging himself at the same time never 
to live in iVustria or to show himself in Vienna. In return 
the Emperor promised Ferdinand Charles an income 

which, though moderate, was yet quite sufficient for his 

63 



The Austrian Court from Within 

requirements. The young Archduke was but too glad 
to obtain his hberty at the price, and he settled in Munich, 
where he soon made himself very much liked and respected 
by the dignity of his conduct, manners, and general 
demeanour. 

His marriage proved to be an extremely happy one, 
and the daughter of Professor Tschuber showed herself 
quite worthy of the honour of her wifely estate. Unfor- 
tunately for them both, the health of Ferdinand Charles, 
which had never been good, began to fail, and it soon 
became evident that he had inherited from his mother the 
seeds of consumption. The best care could not cure the 
insidious advances of disease, and poor Ferdinand Charles 
died in 1914, after a brief period of happiness that had 
been very great, and which would have probably remained 
so, as both he and his wife had the same tastes and were 
quite suited to one another. The Archduchess Marie 
Therese came from Vienna to attend her stepson's death- 
bed, and helped to nurse him with that devotion which 
she knew so well how to bring in regard to everything 
that she did concerning her stepchildren, to whom she 
had always shown herself the best of mothers. 

During her long married life Marie Therese had 

given birth to two daughters, of whom the eldest, Marie 

Annonciade, was appointed Abbess of the Convent of 

Noble Ladies of the Hradschin, in Prague, a purely 

honorary position which, however, conferred a large 

income as well as a very high rank on the holder. 

Previous to the Archduchess Annonciade, the place had 

64 



Archduchess Marie Annonciade 

been occupied by the now Dowager Queen of Spain, 
Marie Christine, and it was always given to a Princess 
belonging to the Imperial House. This convent was 
something Hke the abbeys of ancient France — a refuge 
for ladies devoid of means and whose noble birth was 
beyond dispute. They were perfectly at liberty to marry 
if they liked, when, of course, they had to renounce the 
privileges appertaining to their association, for it could 
hardly be called anything else. Among other rights the 
abbess had that of crowning the Queens of Hungary, an 
occasion upon which she appeared in full canonicals with 
a mitre on her head and a staff in her hand, just as if she 
had been a real religieuse. 

The Archduchess Marie Annonciade was but eighteen 
years of age when she was called upon to occupy this 
important office, which, thanks to the sound advice that 
she received from her mother, and had the good sense 
to follow, she contrived to fulfil to the satisfaction of 
all concerned. After the death of her half-brother, the 
Archduke Otto, when the latter 's consort found herself, 
in her turn, compelled to retire from the world, and 
until the marriage of Otto's son with the Princess Zita 
of Bourbon Parma, it was the Archduchess Marie Annon- 
ciade who did the honours of the Hofburg, in connection 
with which she was given a household of her own and 
became absolutely independent. She is a very great lady 
in manners and a most affable Princess, who has won for 
herself golden opinions in Vienna, where her great 

courtesy in regard to the dowagers, whose word had long 

F 65 



The Austrian Court from Within 

been law in Society, has been the more appreciated 
because these severe ladies had not been considered as of 
much account either by the late Empress or the Crown 
Princess Stephanie. Especially noticeable had always 
been the impatience of the Crown Princess, whose aver- 
sion for every kind of constraint had made her many 
enemies. 

The sister of Marie Annonciade, the Archduchess 
Elisabeth Amelie, was married to a Prince Liechtenstein, 
who in all probability will one day succeed to the family 
estates and the principality of that name. She is very 
pretty and resembles her mother more than the Habs- 
burgs, whose lower lip she has not inherited by some kind 
of miracle, for which, I suppose, she feels immeasurably 
grateful. 

The Archduke Otto — often referred to as the half- 
brother of these young ladies — who ought in due course 
to have succeeded his uncle on the thrones of Austria and 
Hungary, was spoken of with bated breath in Society 
as "one of the worst men who ever lived." Stories 
without number are related of his excesses and extrava- 
gances and the bad treatment which he showered upon 
his wife, a Princess of Saxony and a most admirable 
woman, who bore with him with exemplary patience. 
When he was dying of a loathsome disease Marie Josepha 
went to nurse him, though they had not lived together 
for more than ten years. She remained with him to the 
end, attending to his wants with a devotion that excited 

the admiration of all his doctors and attendants, and which 

66 



Eccentricities of Archduke Otto 

no sister of charity could have equalled. Archduke Otto 
was a thoroughly bad man, who respected nothing, 
believed in nothing, and was never stayed by thought of 
any pain that he would inflict on others if by doing so 
he could obtain gratification of any of his fancies. 

Among the tales that were related about him there 
are two which deserve more than a passing mention. 
One day when out riding in the neighbourhood of Vienna 
he met a funeral on its way to the churchyard. A wild 
thought seized hold of him, and, setting his horse straight 
for the procession, he made it spring across the cofiin that 
was being carried to the grave. The scandalised family 
of the deceased complained to the Emperor in energetic 
terms concerning the conduct of the Archduke, and his 
freak led to an exile for some long time in Oedenburg, 
in Upper Austria, where he spent his days more in riotous 
living than in the fulfilment of his military duties. 

The other story is too difficult to relate delicately, 
especially as it concerns a shocking indignity to which he 
caused his wife to be subjected. After this drunken 
escapade the Archduchess thought it was high time to 
apply to the Emperor, who, entering into the difficulties 
of her position, and for once showing himself kind to a 
member of his own family, allowed her to live apart from 
her husband, and even conferred an independent income 
upon her. 

The Archduchess Marie Josepha was a very pretty 

woman, and a good one into the bargain. Being the 

mother of the future heir to the throne, and exercising a 

67 



The Austrian Court from Within 

very real influence over him, she was rather more con- 
sidered than the other Princesses of the Imperial Family, 
and she became the leader of a powerful party at Court. 
This circle acquired further strength owing to the fact 
that it identified itself with the Clerical party and with 
the Jesuits, who wanted to rule under her name and that 
of her son at some future time. She was liked by Francis 
Joseph, but nevertheless did not influence him to the 
same extent as the Archduchess Marie Therese, who was 
far cleverer than her stepdaughter-in-law, with whom, 
though outwardly on the best of terms, she did not 
thoroughly sympathise. The two ladies used to see each 
other frequently, and in regard to certain matters acted 
together, understanding very well that union is the best 
strength. But it is to be questioned whether, if either of 
them had become an Empress, she would have shown 
herself as affectionate to the other one as was the case 
when they were both, as it were, equals in rank. 

The great preoccupation of the Archduchess Marie 
Josepha is her two sons, especially the eldest, who, owing 
to the morganatic marriage of his uncle, had always been 
considered as the eventual heir to the throne. He is a 
mild young man, one of those who are commonly called 
very good boys. He inherited his mental capacity from 
his mother's family, who came from the House of Saxony, 
which had never been famed for a superabundance of 
executive ability. For the present I will merely say that 
he will assuredly prove to be a docile Emperor, and at 

least he has no vices. He is blessed with a very pretty 

68 



Archduke Frederick 

wife of his own mental calibre. She will make an excel- 
lent Empress, especially in such a diminished and unim- 
portant country as Austria will become after the present 
war. Francis Ferdinand, his uncle, was a quite different 
individuality. He would have asserted himself, most 
probably, in an unexpected way had it been granted to 
him to succeed to his uncle. 

The member of the Imperial Family with most influ- 
ence at the present day is the Archduke Frederick, who by 
reason of his immense fortune — inherited from his uncle, 
the Archduke Albert — has acquired an authority and an 
importance far exceeding that of any of his cousins. He 
is supposed to be an excellent general, though his relative, 
the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand of Tuscany, has given 
proofs of much greater military talent. But Frederick, 
by reason of his age, has become a persona grata with the 
Emperor, who frequently consults him in matters of state 
on such subjects as he consents to discuss with anyone 
else but his own conscience and common sense. 

The Archduke is married to the Princess Isabella 
of Croy, a daughter of the late Duke. The marriage 
caused a nine-days' wonder, though the Croys were 
considered a family having the right to ally itself to 
Royalty. She is a stout and enterprising lady, with 
an erratic temper, a fair endowment of haughtiness, 
and much ambition. The couple have a quiverful of 
daughters, who with one exception have married common 
mortals boasting of unimpeachable quarterings. They 
also have one son, who will one day come into possession 

69 



The Austrian Court from Within 

of the enormous and splendid estates which his father 
owns and which, but for his advent, after his parents had 
been already married about twenty years, would have 
gone to a collateral branch of the Habsburg family. 

I notice that I have not spoken yet of the Emperor's 
youngest daughter, the Archduchess Marie Valerie, which 
is an unpardonable omission if one remembers that she 
is a very considerable personage by reason of the uncon- 
testable influence which she wields over her father, an 
influence that once even exceeded that of Frau Schratt, 
the great friend and Egeria of Francis Joseph. Marie 
Valerie rules the Court, though she does not own to the 
fact, as well as all matters relating to the domestic affairs 
of the Hofburg and of Schonbrunn. She is clever in her 
way, with none of the charm but much of the manner of 
her mother, the late Empress Elisabeth. The Arch- 
duchess Marie Valerie can show herself very determined 
on occasions when she thinks that her interests, her 
welfare or her comforts come into question. She has 
married a younger son of a Habsburg branch that once 
reigned in Tuscany, a good-natured fellow who thinks 
of nothing else but his family and the game he is about 
to shoot or has already shot. They have a numerous 
family. Her eldest daughter is the most beautiful of 
the children, but to her mother's great sorrow the Arch- 
duchess Elisabeth did not elect to wed an Archduke ; she 
married in preference a simple captain in the army — 
Count George of Waldbourg. 

These marriages of the young Archduchesses of the 

70 



Prince Otto Windisch Graetz 

present generation with private gentlemen belonging to 
the highest aristocracy have been very frequent lately. 
The Emperor's granddaughter, the Archduchess Elisa- 
beth, the only child of the poor Crown Prince Rudolph 
— whoni there had been a question of uniting to the King 
of Spain — led the way in such unions. She fell violently 
in love with Prince Otto Windisch Graetz, a younger son 
of the illustrious house. A proverb has long been current 
in Vienna concerning the House of Graetz. It runs : 
" God has created clever men, stupid men, and Windisch 
Graetzes." If one is to believe all that one hears, the 
husband of the Princess Elisabeth is no exception to this 
rule — a fact which, happily for her, his wife has so far 
not realised. 



71 



CHAPTER IV 

THE AFFAIRS OF FRANCIS FERDINAND 

4FTER the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand 
-^"^ no one of sufficient personal importance to take 
his place was left in the Austrian Imperial Family. The 
new heir to the throne will certainly never dare to emerge 
from his present attitude of strict submission to the will 
of the old Emperor. He lacks that initiative of which 
his uncle had, perhaps, too much. 

The unfortunate victim of the Sarajevo tragedy — if 
we are to believe those who knew him well — was not at 
all the kind of man he has been commonly represented. 
In fact, all through his life he kept the general public 
profoundly ignorant as to his real aims and ambitions, 
Francis Ferdinand, though heavy and dull in appearance, 
was gifted with more insight into human nature than 
he has been given credit for, and he had nothing of the 
warlike character which has been attributed to him. On 
the contrary, he showed himself on more than one occa- 
sion the restraining spirit among the advisers of the 
Emperor. In particular, he could never be brought to 
endorse the policy of Count Aerenthal, whom he pro- 
foundly disliked, and mistrusted even more than he 
detested. He had applied himself to the reorganisation 

■ 72 



Activities of Count Aerenthal 

of the Austrian army, not because he was anxious to 
bring about a war, but because he did not intend, in 
case his country should be drawn into one — an entirely 
different thing — that Austria should be compelled to play 
second fiddle to her Prussian allies. 

At the time of the last Balkan crisis he had displayed 
extreme moderation, and is wrongly supposed to have 
urged the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the 
Austrian Empire. This measure, the forerunner of so 
much trouble, originated entirely in the fertile mind of 
Count Aerenthal, who had always nursed the ambition 
of becoming the Bismarck of his country and of earning 
for himself a name in her diplomatic annals by making 
her come out of her outwardly relative passivity to 
assume the leadership in the Balkan Peninsula. More- 
over, he saw clearly that in that part of the world, 
with a little management, Austria could easily find the 
opportunity she had sought ever since 1848 to pay out 
Russia for the help the latter country had awarded her 
at the time of her Hungarian misfortunes. 

Count Aerenthal was of Hebrew origin, and, like the 

generality of converts, he was a fanatic. Furthermore, 

he remained all his life more or less under the influence 

of the Jesuits, though he was not at all a devout sort of 

man in the church-going sense ; in fact, he was not given 

to going to church more than was absolutely necessary 

to establish his reputation as a right-thinking man in 

those circles of Viennese society which could further the 

development of his career. He had applied himself to 

73 



The Austrian Court from Within 

study the character of the Emperor, and, with singular 
insight into its intricacies, had at once put his finger on 
the vulnerable spot of that selfish, opinionated nature — 
its immeasurable vanity. From the day vi^hen, still as a 
young secretary of legation, he had replaced one of his 
chiefs during a temporary absence, and had been admitted 
to the honour of presenting a report on some diplomatic 
incident to the Sovereign, he had contrived to please him, 
principally by the apparent astonishment and admiration 
which he had assumed at every word and remark uttered 
by Francis Joseph. 

The Emperor had not been used to produce such an 
impression on his Ministers, especially on those who 
during the past twenty-five years had had the direction 
of the outward politics of his Empire. Count Andrassy, 
for instance, had never taken the trouble to dissimulate 
his impatience whenever the Emperor had attempted to 
inquire as to any of the details of the Count's administra- 
tion of the Foreign Office. Baron von Hay merle had said' 
nothing, but allowed Francis Joseph to guess a good deal, 
and had flatly refused to follow his indications on several 
occasions. As for Count Goluchowski, who had all the 
haughtiness of the Polish aristocracy to w^hich he belonged, 
he had simply ignored his Imperial Master until the day 
when, thoroughly disgusted by the turn which events 
were taking, he had retired into private life. With Count 
— at that time still Mr. — Aerenthal things were very 
different. He made a special point of always taking the 

orders of the Emperor before making any suggestion to 

74 



Bosnia and Herzegovina 

him, but contrived to do it in such a cunning way that 
in the long run it was he who decided everything and 
his plans that were put into execution. 

The annexation of Bosnia and of Herzegovina, for 
example, was hinted at in one of these private conversa- 
tions. The old Monarch at once declared that he had 
all along thought it was a shame this measure had not 
been resorted to long ago, and finally took upon himself 
the responsibility of this bold step about which he would 
never have troubled but for the activity of Count 
Aerenthal. 

The Archduke Francis Ferdinand was perfectly well 
aware of this state of things, and it made him dislike 
even more than he had done before his uncle's adviser and 
Minister. The Archduke, whatever has been related to 
the contrary, had no hostile intentions against anyone 
among the neighbours of Austria. Indeed, he was very 
averse to any complications likely to bring the Monarchy 
into trouble — complications for which public opinion 
might have made him answerable. His one great 
ambition was to consolidate the position of his wife and 
children, and, if possible, to arrange matters so that his 
son might succeed him, if not in Austria, at least in 
Hungary. When he had married the Countess Sophy 
Chotek — a union which would never have taken place had 
it not been for the stupidity of the Archduchess Isabella, 
who, in thrusting out of her house her unfortunate lady- 
in-waiting, compromised her so thoroughly that the 

Archduke could but offer her the only reparation which 

75 



The Austrian Court from Within 

lay in his power and wed her — Francis Ferdinand had 
been compelled by his uncle to renounce for his posterity 
all rights, not only to the succession to the throne, but 
also to the immense inheritance of the Duke of Modena, 
which constituted the bulk of his future fortune. I 
use the word " future " because, though the vast estates 
of the ducal family of Este passed to the Archduke, their 
revenues continued to be enjoyed by the widow of their 
last owner, the Princess Adelgonda of Bavaria. She died 
in October, 1914, four months after the murder of her 
nephew, when the present heir to the Austrian throne, 
the young Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, stepped 
into her place. 

Francis Ferdinand, who was always supposed to be 
very rich, had in reality very little beyond his allowance 
as a member of the Imperial Family to live upon, together 
with some estates that he had inherited from his father, 
which were encumbered by the large dowry which his 
stepmother drew from them. When people in Vienna, 
who did not like either him or his wife, reproached them 
for what they called their meanness, they did not realise 
that he drew no revenue from the Modena estates, and 
far from having the millions attributed to him, the 
Archduke had to be very careful with his money — the 
more so in order that he might make provision for his 
children. The Countess Chotek had no money of her 
own. The children, therefore, would have been left with 
but a very modest fortune if the Archduchess Marie 

Therese, their father's stepmother, had not intervened 

76 



The Duchess of Hohenberg's Future 

on their behalf and persuaded the Emperor to give them 
for their lifetime an allowance of the same proportions as 
enjoyed by all the Archdukes and Archduchesses. 

Considering these facts, of which no one abroad and 
but few people in Austria were aware, it will not be 
difficult for the reader to believe that Francis Ferdinand's 
immediate interests commanded him to try and smooth 
over any political difficulties likely to compromise the 
peace of the Austrian Monarchy which might have arisen. 
He was perfectly well aware that, should his wife survive 
him before her position had been put on an unassailable 
footing, she would find herself in most terrible diffi- 
culties, both from a moral and a material point of view. 
The Imperial Family detested her, and the society of 
Vienna had not forgiven her for a marriage which had at 
once raised her to a pinnacle to which even the daughters 
of the haughtiest princely family of the upper aristocracy 
could not have aspired. She had lived a secluded life 
since she had become the consort of the heir to the throne, 
and this also was reproached to her and put to the account 
of a pride which seemed out of place to those who had 
known her as a girl. Then she was of no importance and 
had been glad to obtain the appointment of lady-in-wait- 
ing to the Archduchess Isabella — a position which had 
allowed her to become independent of the relatives on 
whose bounty she had been thrown when the death of 
her parents had left her almost without resources. 

Count and Countess Chotek had both been delightful 

people, had spent their money freely in the various 

77 



The Austrian Court from Within 

diplomatic posts which they had occupied, shown them- 
selves admirable hosts, and been immensely popular ; but 
they had never given a thought to the morrow or to the 
future of their numerous children. Providence, however, 
had been kind to them in that all their daughters married 
admirably well. There were six of them, and none were 
provided for when the Count died, after a mental illness 
which had necessitated his confinement in an asylum. 
Countess Chotek had died a few years before. The happy 
home in which their children had been reared was broken 
up, and the children left to make their own way in the 
world as best they could. They had all inherited the 
great charm of their father and mother, and were general 
favourites in Viennese society, as well as in Prague, where 
they had innumerable relations and friends, the Choteks 
being themselves Czechs and connected with the highest 
Bohemian aristocracy. 

Sophy, who was to ally herself in such an unexpected 
manner to the Habsburgs, was perhaps the cleverest of 
her family. This fact, however, did not help to smooth 
the ground before her at the time when her love-romance 
with the Archduke directed toward her the attention 
of the whole of Austria. She was perfectly well aware 
of the angry looks of those whom her marriage had 
either disappointed or offended, and, as was but natural, 
this made her shy. It also angered her, though she knew 
how to conceal her anger. She made up her mind that 
she would conquer for herself the position which had 

been refused to her, and began from the first hour of her 

78 



The Emperor and His Heir 

marriage to feel her way, very cautiously at first, and 
with more assurance later, into the good graces of the 
Emperor. 

The latter had never cared for his nephew ; he per- 
ceived in him signs of an independence of character that 
jarred upon him, and felt dissatisfied with the ease with 
which the Archduke had stepped into his position as heir- 
presumptive, insisting upon being kept instructed as to 
what was going on in both political and military matters, 
and making friends and supporters for himself without 
any reference to his uncle's wishes, likes or dislikes. 
Francis Joseph, therefore, was not so very sorry when 
he discovered that the young man who had made himself 
so disagreeable to him was meditating a marriage which 
would put him in an awkward position in regard to the 
whole family ; and he gave his consent to this romantic 
union with less opposition than could have been expected, 
but surrounded it with all the formalities that he could 
think of, so as to guard against any possibility of 
the children which Sophy Chotek might bear to her 
husband becoming anything but rich private people. 
Sophy herself was given the title of Princess of Hohen- 
berg, but no rank whatever at Court — a state of affairs 
which made her position almost unbearable, seeing how 
strictly Court etiquette was observed at the Hofburg. 
The new Princess, however, said nothing. The Emperor 
was already a very old man ; she felt she could reasonably 
hope to survive him. Nevertheless, she set herself to win 
his good opinion, and partly succeeded, principally 

79 



The Austrian Court from Within 

because she persuaded him that she was influencing her 
husband toward a definite abandonment of his rights to 
the succession in favour of Charles Francis Joseph (the 
son of his next brother, Otto), who had always been the 
great favourite of the Emperor. 

Finally, the Emperor fell to quite an appreciable 
extent under the influence of his clever niece by marriage. 
Indeed, he conferred upon her the title of Duchess, to- 
gether with a rank that gave her precedence over all 
ladies of society with the sole exception of the Arch- 
duchesses. Moreover, he liked to have her about him, 
and this was a source of displeasure to many people, 
among others to Prince von Montenuovo, the great 
favourite of the Emperor, who hated the Archduke 
Francis Ferdinand. 

As time went on the Duchess of Hohenberg became 
an important personage, though she kept always more 
or less in the background. The Emperor William II., 
however, was clever enough to seek her friendship ; he 
saw that if he won her good graces she could persuade 
her husband to enter into the political views of Germany 
and espouse her quarrels. But she and William II. were 
at cross purposes ; the consort of Francis Ferdinand 
merely wanted the Emperor's help to consolidate her own 
position in the present as well as in the future by obtain- 
ing its official recognition at foreign Courts ; the German 
Emperor, on the contrary, simply wished to make her a 
pawn in the complicated game he had already made up 

his mind to play sooner or later. 

80 



Francis Ferdinand at Potsdam 

The Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were 
invited to spend a week at Potsdam, where they were 
awarded a warm welcome, and Sophy Hohenberg treated 
as if she had been the Archduchess she dreamt of becom- 
ing one day. This visit led to another one ; this time to 
Windsor Castle, where King George and Queen Mary 
received the future Emperor of Austria with the courtesy 
which they know so well how to show to all who have 
the honour to become their guests. But though the 
Duchess was herself accompanied by one of her own 
relations, who for the occasion filled the place of a lady- 
in-waiting, she felt that the English Court did not forgo 
its etiquette so far as to consider her quite as the equal 
of her husband. This wounded her, but, whatever she 
might have felt, she effectually concealed it with that 
self-control for which she was so remarkable, and the visit 
passed off better than could have been foreseen when it 
was entered upon. 

On their return from England the couple began to 
show themselves in Society more than had been the case 
before. They took to entertaining their friends in a quiet 
way and made a few country-house visits in Bohemia, 
Galicia and other Austrian provinces. The Duchess, who 
had always belonged to the extreme Clerical party, but 
had always refrained from airing her opinions too openly, 
now showed less reticence. She was preparing her ground 
for the time when her husband succeeded to his uncle, 
a moment that she fully intended would see her put at 
last into the place which she considered to be her due. 

G 81 



The Austrian Court from Within 

According to the Hungarian constitution, she might 
have been acknowledged as the Queen of that country, 
and her children declared able to succeed to their father, 
had Francis Ferdinand cared to make an effort in that 
direction. It was to make this effort that the Duchess 
was determined to persuade him. But in order to effect 
this revolution — ^for it would be nothing else, according 
to the traditions which up to that day had ruled all the 
actions of the Habsburgs — a perfectly peaceful political 
situation was a sine qua non. The Archduke was very 
well aware of this fact, and this was the reason why he did 
not view with a favourable eye the adventurous line of 
policy pursued by Count Aerenthal. Far from approving 
the annexation of Bosnia and of Herzegovina to the 
Austrian crown, Francis Ferdinand violently opposed it, 
though throughout Europe he was given the credit for the 
contrary, partly through the agency of Aerenthal himself, 
who, to justify his action before foreign chancelleries, 
declared that he was not to blame in the matter. The 
Emperor, influenced by his nephew and heir, Aerenthal 
said, had personally decided the matter. 

The Archduke became aware of this calumny and of 
the astuteness of his uncle's adviser, who thus shifted 
the burden on to his shoulders. He was furious with 
Aerenthal, and they quarrelled, from which time, until 
Aerenthal's fatal illness, they were greater enemies than 
ever. 

The choice of a successor to Aerenthal became a 

matter of supreme importance, and though the names of 

82 



Count Berchtold takes Office 

several candidates were submitted for the approval of the 
Sovereign, Francis Joseph did not take kindly to any. 
At this juncture the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who 
had hitherto never interfered with any of the decisions of 
the Monarch, came forward and proposed the Austrian 
Ambassador in Petersburg, Count Berchtold, as the 
successor of his late hete noire. 

Count Berchtold was one of his personal friends, and 
he trusted him more than anyone else among the men 
who held important posts in the Empire. He was a very 
amiable man, the perfect type of an Austrian aristocrat — 
proud, haughty, and more or less convinced that the 
Almighty, in creating him, had had some quite special 
views and intentions as to his future. He was very rich, 
had married a handsome and attractive woman who 
had been born and bred in the heart of diplomacy, 
her father. Count Aloys Karolyi, having been successively 
Austrian Ambassador in Berhn and in London, where the 
beauty of the Countess Karolyi had made a considerable 
sensation. Countess Berchtold was a very great lady, 
with the manners and the attitude of one, and she had 
been one of the few persons who had neither abused nor 
turned the cold shoulder on Sophy Chotek when the latter 
had won the heart of the heir to the Austrian and 
Hungarian crowns. 

Perhaps this circumstance had had something to do 
with the favour with which he was viewed by Francis 
Ferdinand. 

With Count Berchtold installed at the Ball Platz, the 

83 



The Austrian Court from Within 

Archduke thought that he was safe from any complica- 
tions that could interfere with the plans which he was 
already preparing for the day when he should become the 
master. 

A serious illness of the old Emperor during the first 
months of 1914 brought the Archduke more in evidence 
than had ever been the case before and added considerably 
to his importance. This was felt everywhere — ^nowhere 
more than in Berlin and at Potsdam, where William II. 
was speculating as to what the future held in reserve for 
him on the day when his grandfather's old ally, Francis 
Joseph, should have closed his eyes for ever. He showed 
himself unusually attentive to Francis Ferdinand and to 
the latter's consort, and he visited them at Miramar, 
where they were spending the spring, on his way back 
from Corfu, whither he had repaired at the beginning of 
March for his annual holiday. The interview was a most 
cordial one ; the Emperor and Archduke separated appar- 
ently on the best of terms. Three months later the 
German Emperor invited himself at the Castle of Kono- 
pischt, in Bohemia. This visit did not end so happily 
as the former one, because it became clear to William II. 
that the Archduke did not in the least intend following 
him in the adventurous policy which he M^as already 
dreaming of, and that all his thoughts were concentrated 
on family matters. 

The whole world was convinced that the accession of 
Francis Ferdinand would mean war within a short time. 

This opinion had originated from Count Aerenthal, and 

84 



A Misfortune of Magnitude 

had been so cunningly put into circulation that there are 
a good nlany people who to this day are convinced that 
the one bellicose element in Austria was the unfortunate 
Prince who fell at Sarajevo. In reality, things were 
entirely different, and it is pretty certain that had Francis 
Ferdinand not been murdered in such a dastardly manner 
he would have done much to consolidate the peace of 
Europe. He had a will of his own, and would never have 
become a puppet in the hands of his Ministers and 
advisers, and he was far too good a husband and father 
to endanger the existence of his wife and children in an 
adventure which, in any case and whatever the ultimate 
results, could only have done them harm. 

His assassination was one of those misfortunes of 
which the magnitude can only be appreciated long after 
it has occurred. It left the field free to all the intrigues 
of the military party in Austria and of the partisans of 
war in Germany, and it afforded the pretext, which the 
latter had long been looking for, to put into execution 
the programme which has plunged the whole of Europe 
into chaos and calamity. 

Once the ilrchduke had disappeared there remained 

no strong man or character in the Imperial Family. The 

new heir was not of the stuff that heroes, or even men of 

initiative, are made. He was a perfect example of that 

obedience in which the Habsburgs are reared in regard 

to the head of their house, an obedience which never dares 

to question any of the decisions which it pleases the latter 

to make. His wife, pretty, insignificant, and admirably 

85 



The Austrian Court from Within 

brought up, had neither inclination nor desire to keep 
herself in touch with what was going on in the political 
world. She was timid and stood in great awe both of 
her mother-in-law, the Archduchess Marie Josepha, and 
of the Archduchess Marie Therese. 

Zita of Bourbon Parma, it is to be feared, will never 
assert herself otherwise than in matters of pure etiquette 
and, perhaps, of fashion. Her husband has, up to now, 
faithfully performed the duties of his new position, and 
whenever he has been at the front to review the troops, 
by order of his uncle, he has smiled when it was necessary, 
pitied when sympathy was expected of him, and made 
himself generally agreeable. He has not inspired any 
enthusiasm in the soldiers he had been told to encourage. 
Nevertheless he always returned full of the conviction 
that he had done so, his ears not being sufficiently trained 
yet to observe the difference between an official and a 
heart-spoken " Hurrah !" 



CHAPTER V 

THE PERSONAL FRIENDS OF FRANCIS JOSEPH 

THE popular saying that Sovereigns cannot often find 
disinterested friends could not be better applied than 
in the case of the present Austrian Emperor. During the 
whole of his reign he has found hardly any disinterested 
friends. He did not suffer from this, as his was not a 
nature that craved for companionship, and he had no real 
secrets to share with anyone. When he had been young 
and handsome women had smiled on him, and he had 
accepted it with that perfect equanimity and conviction 
of his own merits which has never left him. He had liked 
his youngest brother, the Archduke Louis Victor, whose 
tastes resembled his own, and in whose companionship, 
in spite of the great difference of age that existed between 
them, he had indulged in the spasmodic outbursts to which 
he was inclined. 

The Archduke Louis was far cleverer than the 
Emperor, and he had contrived to acquire over Francis 
Joseph a certain influence which had caused him to be 
considered as an important personage in the State. But 
he never could get on with the great favourite of the 
Emperor, Prince Alfred von Montenuovo, who very soon 

managed to get him out of the way. This was not diffi- 

87 



The Austrian Court from Within 

cult to do, as it was quite sufficient to say to Francis 
Joseph that the Archduke aspired to become a social and 
political power, to make him desirous of getting rid of 
him. It began to be whispered in Court circles that 
Louis Victor had contracted unmentionable habits, and 
these rumours reached the ears of Francis Joseph in some 
apparently inexplicable manner, which, however, was not 
difficult to trace by any who knew the ins and the outs of 
the inner life of the Hofburg. The result was that the 
Archduke received orders to repair to the castle of Kleis- 
heim, near Salzbourg, where he is still kept under severe 
control on the pretext of not being quite right in his mind. 
This procedure is a favourite resource with the Habsburgs 
whenever they wish to put out of their way anyone whom 
they consider either a nuisance or likely to cause them 
some annoyance. 

With the disappearance of Louis Victor the last link 
between the Emperor and the outside world was broken. 
From the day that his brother passed into exile, the only 
two people who could have free access to him were his 
old aide-de-camp. General Count Paar, who is perhaps 
the only man in the whole of Austria who loves his 
Sovereign truly and sincerely, and whose devotion to him 
has never varied. The other one is the Grand Master of 
his Household, Prince Alfred of Montenuovo, who by 
judicious flattery has implanted himself so firmly at the 
Hofburg that it is hardly likely he will be dismissed 
while Francis Joseph lives. 

The Prince's influence is the most dominant factor at 



Influence of Prince von Montenuovo 

Court, and he uses it freely. Unkind people say that his 
own ambitions are never lost sight of. Even the Arch- 
dukes dread him and try to propitiate him, and whenever 
one among them has attempted to stand in his way he 
has invariably regretted it afterwards. The Archduchess 
Marie Valerie abominates Prince von Montenuovo, but 
nevertheless has so far failed in the repeated efforts she 
has made to show to her father that his favourite is in 
no way worthy of the kindness he has received. Her 
antagonism against the Prince is so strong that, as a 
penalty for the animosity which she displayed in regard 
to the one man at the Hofburg whose orders no one ever 
disputes, she was very nearly deprived of part of the 
allowance which Francis Joseph makes to her out of his 
private purse. 

It is extremely difficult to explain how the Prince, 
who is much younger than the Emperor, has contrived to 
acquire such an empire over Francis Joseph. Some kind- 
hearted souls have been found to hint that the secret of 
this affection borne by Francis Joseph for the Prince has 
its origin in the one which in a distant past he had nursed 
for the latter 's mother, a Countess Batthyany by birth, 
who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the loveliest 
women of her generation. But honesty compels one to 
say that nothing stronger than pure friendship ever 
existed between them. On the other hand, her husband, 
WilKam of Montenuovo, who by reason of his relationship 
with the Imperial family, through his mother, Marie 
Louise, the widow of Napoleon, had been admitted into 

89 



The Austrian Court from Within 

the companionship of the sons of the Archduchess Sophy 
when these were but small boys, and was strong in their 
favour. He was indeed a pleasant man, and a great 
favourite in Vienna society until the illness which struck 
him a few years before his death, and which obliged him 
to retire from the world. When the Emperor ascended 
the throne he continued his friendship with this mor- 
ganatic cousin of his, and conferred upon him the title 
of Prince with that of Serene Highness, appointing 
him at the same time commander-in-chief of the Traban 
guards, one of the highest distinctions of the Vienna 
Court. Still, though he was on terms of great intimacy 
with him, and though their ages, which were about the 
same, ought to have been a link between them, he 
never exercised a real influence on the Emperor; and 
though he was considered to be a personal friend of his, 
he never enjoj^ed his entire confidence, as is the case 
with the present Prince Alfred, from whom his Imperial 
master has no secrets — perhaps because the latter would 
never allow him to keep any. 

It was thought at one time that Frau Catherine 
Schratt, the only feminine friend which the Emperor has 
at present, and who for more years than one would care 
to count has occupied the position of his chief adviser, 
was the great power that protected the Grand Master of 
the Household ; but those in the secrets of the gods, and 
able to know all that goes on in the Hofburg, are sure 
that far from this being the case, if Frau Schratt could 
have had her own way Prince von Montenuovo would have 

90 



Montenuovo and Ferdinand of Bulgaria 

been dismissed long ago. The mystery remains therefore 
quite unexplainable. But whatever may be the reason 
for the immense influence exercised by the favourite of 
the Emperor, there is no gainsaying that it is a very real 
one, and that it is not likely it v^ill be damaged or 
shaken, so long as Francis Joseph remains in the land of 
the living. 

Prince von Montenuovo belongs to that happy class 
of people who believe themselves not only clever, but 
also able to lead the world according to their personal 
likes or dislikes. He makes a point of interviewing the 
Ministers of the Crown, to ascertain their plans and in- 
tentions before he allows them to present themselves 
before the Emperor. It was reported that he was one of 
the greatest friends that Count Aerenthal had contrived 
to win for himself, and that it was owing to his protection 
that this unscrupulous politician had succeeded in con- 
verting the Sovereign to the policy which he had 
inaugurated as soon as the foreign aiffairs of the Austrian 
Empire had been entrusted into his care. 

Prince von Montenuovo hated Russia, and had always 

been a strong partisan of an alliance with Germany that 

might have enabled the former country to be definitely 

banished from the Balkans, and superseded by Austria 

allied to Bulgaria. He had been at school with the 

present King of that realm, and the sly Ferdinand of 

Coburg had taken good care to remain upon good terms 

with a man through whom he could obtain many an object 

it would otherwise have been impossible to reach. 

91 



The Austrian Court from Within 

During the whole time that the last Balkan war 
lasted, it was related that a weekly messenger travelled 
between Sofia and Vienna, and carried to Prince von 
Montenuovo news from his friend the King of Bulgaria. 
They were both lovers of intrigue, no matter in what 
shape and form, and they both understood to perfection 
how to carry them on with ease and secrecy at the same 
time. Russian diplomats in their guilelessness never 
suspected the game that was being played on the shores 
of the Black Sea and amidst the roses which bloom in the 
gardens of Euxinograd, the fairylike palace which the 
Coburg Prince has built for himself in view of the dark 
waters of the old Pont Euxin. They never guessed that 
one of the biggest conspiracies that has ever been hatched 
by one nation against another was being planned under 
their very eyes, and that its principal leaders were resid- 
ing at Vienna, living in close intercourse with the old 
and unscrupulous Monarch who ruled there. 

The Archduke Francis Ferdinand and Prince von 
Montenuovo had always been upon the worst possible 
terms. The heir to the throne could not stand the over- 
bearing tone and manners of the Austrian nobleman, and 
on more occasions than one Ferdinand had made him 
feel that when he succeeded to the throne, he would re- 
member the injuries which he had been obliged to put up 
with whilst he had not possessed the power to avenge 
them. 

On his side the Prince had taken advantage of every 
possible occasion to humiliate the Duchess of Hohenberg, 

92 



A Court Episode 

and it was a current story in Vienna that one day, at some 
Court festivity, seeing her not in her proper precedence, 
he had sent a chamberlain to her with the request to move 
down to her right place. After this episode the consort 
of the Archduke had asked the Emperor to excuse her 
from appearing at the usual Sunday family dinners, to 
which she was generally asked, together with her husband. 
This adventure, which caused an immense sensation, led 
to the Duchess being awarded a special rank that at least 
put her out of the reach of such gratuitous insults ; but 
the remembrance always rankled in her heart, and she 
made no secret of the fact that she intensely disliked the 
Grand Master of the Imperial Household, and that when 
she was in a position to do so she would repay him with 
usury for all the unpleasantnesses which he had caused 
her. 

It is difficult to foresee how this antagonism would 
have ended had not the catastrophe of Sarajevo occurred, 
and removed with one blow the two great enemies of 
Prince Alfred of Montenuovo. Anyone but himself 
would have felt all his former resentments melt before 
such a terrible and unforeseen misfortune ; but if the 
story can be believed, it is said that the Prince at once 
put forward all the exigencies of an etiquette which no 
one but himself would have ever remembered, and in- 
sisted on the funeral of the two victims of this tragedy 
being conducted in a manner which was a disgrace. 
Under the pretence that the Duchess of Hohenberg 

could not be treated as a member of the Imperial family, 

93 



The Austrian Court from Within 

he refused to Francis Ferdinand the post-mortem honours 
to which an Archduke was entitled, declaring that as it 
was hardly possible to bury him anywhere else and at 
another time than the devoted wife who had shared his 
fate, he would have also to be laid to rest with as much 
haste and as little ceremony as possible. 

Even the intimate friends of the murdered couple were 
refused the permission to render to them the last homage 
that they could perform in regard to their persons. 

The Emperor William II., who had at first wished to 
assist at the funeral ceremony, was informed that it was 
preferable that he should abstain from doing so. The 
two coffins were taken to a distant estate of the Arch- 
duke, where scarcely anyone was allowed to be present. 
Even the children of the Archduke were prevented from 
witnessing the funeral of their father and mother. 

For once the Viennese aristocracy revolted against 
this decision, and the friends of the late Archduke signed 
a protest which they presented to the Emperor. 

Prince von Montenuovo is married to a very pretty 
woman, a Countess Kinsky by birth, who at the time she 
was wedded to him was considered the most beautiful 
girl of her day. She is amiable too, very popular among 
a certain small set, but not liked in general society, as she 
is too exclusive in her personal acquaintances. The 
Prince and Princess are rich, but do not care for enter- 
taining. 

General Count Paar is a very different man from 

Prince Montenuovo. He is a type of an old soldier who 

94 



General Count Paar 

knows nothing beyond his duty, and who performs 
it with zeal and with accuracy. For something like fifty 
years he has never left the Emperor, and it is upon him 
that has devolved generally the sad mission to acquaint 
Francis Joseph of the various family misfortunes which 
have fallen to that Monarch's lot. When the Empress 
was murdered at Geneva, the first news of the crime was 
brought to Count Paar. When the drama of Sarajevo 
took place, it was again on Count Paar that fell the 
obligation to break the news to his Imperial master. 
Whenever any sorrow has overtaken the House of 
Habsburg, the faithful old soldier has been there to bear 
its first shock, and to try to lighten it for the one on whom 
it was to fall. He really loves Francis Joseph, of that 
there is no doubt ; he loves him and he is devoted to him 
body and soul, and very probably if he survives him it will 
not be for long. The aged servant will soon find a resting- 
place not far from the Sovereign at whose side nearly his 
whole life has been spent. 

In Vienna, where the General is a familiar figure, 
everybody knows and respects him ; and he is a popular 
personage even among the street urchins that gather 
round him when they see him take his morning walk in 
the Prater, where until lately he used to ride a big chestnut 
mare, almost as old as himself. He has always a 
pleasant word for those he speaks to, and he has never 
used the incontestable influence which he wields on his 
Sovereign otherwise than to do good wherever he could. 
Intrigue is unknown to him. He does not care for Prince 

95 



The Austrian Court from Within 

von Montenuovo. In reality Count Paar is perfectly 
aware that, should it come to a struggle between them, 
it is not he who would win, and he is so attached to Francis 
Joseph that he puts up with many things simply in order 
to be allowed to remain with the old man. 

Another man with whom the Emperor was upon 
terms of true intimacy was the late King Albert of 
Saxony. The friendship began at the time when Albert 
was still Crown Prince and had just won for his wife the 
Princess Caroline of Wasa. The couple had spent some 
weeks at Vienna, and Albert being about the same age as 
the Emperor, Francis Joseph had allowed himself to be 
drawn into friendship. 

Albert of Saxony was more than once called upon 
to smooth differences between Francis Joseph and the 
Empress Elisabeth, and he had contrived to remain 
on good terms with both of them, which was rather 
an achievement considering their characters. King 
Albert himself had always been the best of husbands, but 
he was also a man of the world, who knew how to speak 
the language of the world, and how to appeal to the feel- 
ings of an angry, passionate woman. Elisabeth grew to 
like him and to confide in him too. After her death 
he was the only one among all the royal personages who 
had arrived in Vienna for her obsequies who was admitted 
into the presence of the Emperor and allowed to express 
to him his horror at the dastardly crime which had put an 
end so brutally to the existence of one of the noblest 

women who had ever lived. 

96 



King Albert of Saxony 

Apart from his influence in the family affairs of the 
Austrian Imperial couple, the King of Saxony played a 
considerable part in the submission of Austria to the 
views of Germany. Prince Bismarck, at the time when 
he had been dreaming of the Triple Alliance, had already 
taken advantage of the good offices of King Albert to 
preach its necessity to Francis Joseph. The King was 
entirely German in his opinions, and, especially after the 
war of 1870, had accepted his position as vassal of the new 
German Empire with that thoroughness which he brought 
into everything that he did. He was extremely respected, 
and his sound judgment carried a great deal of weight 
along with it. 

Without being brilliant King Albert had a clear 
head, common sense, and a keen appreciation of the 
necessities of the moment, which, if he had been less 
highly principled, might even have been called by the 
name of opportunism. He admired Prince Bismarck a 
great deal, the German army even more, and William I. 
above everybody else. His personality was one of the 
principal influences in bringing about the German rap- 
prochement with Austria which, entirely superficial at 
first, was to become with time so strong that the states- 
men who ruled at the Ball Platz became dependent for 
their inspirations on the Wilhelmstrasse, and followed its 
lead rather than their own immediate interests. 

The great triumph of the King of Saxony was to 

make friends wherever he went, and to convince all whom 

he wanted to win to his side of the soundness of his judg- 
H 97 



The Austrian Court from Within 

ments of people as well as of facts. Even Prince von 
Montenuovo had to succumb to his personality, and to 
promise him to use his influence over the Emperor in 
favour of the policy which Albert outlined. 

The Saxon Monarch had a grudge against Russia 
dating from the time of the war of 1866. When it had 
broken out the Court of Dresden had sounded the Cabinet 
of Petersburg as to the possibility of an intervention 
in its favour, and had met with an absolute refusal. 
Tsar Alexander II. professed such a great affection for 
his Prussian relatives that he would not hear of doing any- 
thing which might prevent the triumph of the troops 
commanded by his uncle of Berlin. On the contrary he 
gave the latter all the diplomatic and political support he 
could. Perhaps Alexander was not over-sorry to see 
humiliated and defeated that ungrateful Austria which 
had played his father false during the Crimean War. 
The entreaties of the Saxon Government left him abso- 
lutely unmoved, which was perhaps one of the greatest 
political mistakes of his reign, because the consequences 
of a Russian intervention after Sadowa, not perhaps in 
, favour of Austria, but in that of the other confederated 
German Governments, might have changed the whole 
future course of history. 

King Albert of Saxony, though he had become con- 
verted to the idea of the Prussian supremacy over the 
whole of Germany, had neither forgotten nor forgiven 
the rebuff which his own country had received at the 

hands of Russia, and it had a lot to do with the ardour 

98 



Always a Habsburg 

with which he threw himself into the plans of Bismarck 
and worked towards entangling Austria too into its in- 
tricacies. In that respect he played an immense part in 
the close union which afterwards drew the two Empires 
together. 

With the death of the King, the best royal friend of 
Francis Joseph disappeared. The old Monarch was left 
entirely dependent upon his own resources and the counsel 
of the few people whom he allowed an entrance into the 
intimacy of his private life. He submitted to the will of 
Prince von Montenuovo, but he always treated him as 
someone infinitely below him, and even with Frau 
Schratt he did not depart from his attitude of Sovereign, 
even when he posed as a good old man on a visit to a friend 
of many years' standing. Francis Joseph had occasionally 
forgotten the promises which he had made, the duties 
which he had assumed, and the obligations entailed upon 
him by his high state, but he always remembered that he 
was a Habsburg ; he had found it the most useful thing 
in the world, and one which allowed him to shirk with 
utter unconcern many of the responsibilities that rightly 
speaking were his. 

Francis Joseph has ever been incapable of any great 
political conception, and therefore it became relatively 
easy for a man like the present German Emperor to over- 
ride him. Under the pretext of showing continual 
deference to the friend of his grandfather, William II. 
kept himself in close touch with Francis Joseph, and 
never missed any opportunity to see him personally and 

99 



The Austrian Court from Within 

to exchange with him letters which, though often merely 
missives of politeness, yet always contained something 
to give to them more importance than would have 
seemed at first sight. He cultivated the society of the 
aged Austrian Monarch, bore with him, endured his con- 
versation, and treated him with just that tinge of respect 
which, coming from a personage whose position was as 
exalted as his own, conveyed by its expression a most 
delicate flattery, certain to appeal to the vanity of the 
person to whom it was addressed. 

William II. did something more than this. He took 
great care to keep as his Ambassador at the Austrian 
Court a man in possession of his entire confidence, who 
could work toward the maintenance of these good rela- 
tions from which he hoped to obtain so many benefits in 
the future. For a long time that post was occupied by 
Prince Eulenburg, the hero of the sad scandal which 
caused such a sensation a few years ago, and one of the 
most intelligent men in the German diplomatic service. 

When the question arose as to who should become 

the successor of Eulenburg, it was again a favourite 

of the Emperor who was sent, Herr von Tschirsky-Bogen- 

dorff, a man whose personal appearance did not in the 

least correspond to his intellectual and moral worth, 

because he was one of the nicest men imaginable, and no 

one meeting him for the first time could imagine him 

capable of directing the whole intrigue which after the 

murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was to bring 

about the war for which the German Empire had been 

100 



Herr von Tschirsky 

so steadily preparing itself for so many years, but for 
which it had never been able to find an earlier pretext. 

The advent at Vienna of Herr von Tschirsky gave a 
new activity to Austrian politics. He was a great friend 
of Count Aerenthal, of whom he had been the colleague 
in Petersburg, and he suggested to him most of the steps 
which made the tenure of office of the latter personage so 
sadly memorable. After his death, and the appointment 
of Count Berchtold in his place, the relations of the 
German Embassy with the Ball Platz became cooler. Its 
new head was upon good terms with M. Izvolsky, then 
Minister for Foreign Affairs in Russia, and he tried 
honestly to come to some arrangement with the latter 
concerning the everlasting Near Eastern question, which 
was always the one weak and dangerous spot in the 
general European situation. For a short time it had 
seemed as if the efforts of the Count in that direction were 
about to be successful ; then came all the difficulties which 
developed in quick succession during the two Balkan 
wars, and at last the tragedy which gave a free field to 
the intrigues of the German Ambassador, and led to the 
great final catastrophe. 

When it occurred Francis Joseph was thrown entirely 
on the Emperor William II. for support, and left at the 
latter 's mercy. Can one wonder that under such circum- 
stances he drifted toward the deep ocean in which the 
Austrian Empire, no matter what may be the result of 
the war, is bound to perish .f* 



101 



CHAPTER VI 

FRAU CATHERINE SCHRATT AND THE EMPEROR 'S 
FRIENDSHIPS 

A GREAT deal has been written in Austria, and 
spoken in Vienna, about the former actress of the 
Burg Theatre, Frau Catherine Schratt, with whom the 
Emperor is supposed to be, even at this time, in most 
intimate relations. This last piece of gossip must be 
accepted with a considerable grain of salt, if one takes 
into account the advanced age of the two persons con- 
cerned. After all, the Emperor is eighty-five and Frau 
Schratt sixty, if not older. 

But it is not a calumny to suppose that there was a 
time when Frau Schratt was something more to the Em- 
peror than a platonic friend, and she has succeeded in 
keeping a firm hold upon her lover of former times — a 
feat the more wonderful in that the Sovereign was never 
famous for his constancy. 

It would be almost impossible to recall all the love 
affairs which the Emperor has had. When he was young, 
and before his marriage, there was hardly any pretty 
woman in Vienna who had not seen him at her feet for 
a longer or for a shorter time. The Archduchess Sophy 
had rather encouraged her son's excursions into the for- 

102 







"pSft'S-; 




I I 



0***. A 






FRAU CATHERINF: SCHRATT 



Francis Joseph and His Mother 

bidden land where every young man likes to wander, 
hoping thus to divert his attention from politics, the 
control of which she preferred to keep in her own hands. 
She had very quickly, however, come to the conclusion 
that, in love or not, the Emperor did not in the least 
mean to abandon one iota of the supreme power, and 
that, above everything else, he did not mean his mother 
to be able to boast that it was she who influenced or led 
the affairs of the State. This was a source of great dis- 
appointment to her, and it made her turn her attention 
toward arranging a marriage for the young Monarch. 

As we have seen, she was quite successful in this 
last enterprise, and had the satisfaction of seeing her son 
lead her own niece to the altar. The pleasure which the 
fact afforded to her, however, was not to be long-lived. 
The newly wedded Empress did not get on with her 
mother-in-law ; whilst the latter, for her part, did much 
to make the Empress's life unbearable. The Archduchess 
was one of those eighteenth-century Princesses bred to 
shut their eyes on what was going on around them. 

Elisabeth had been really in love with the Emperor, 
and she had honestly believed that his passion for her 
would be a lasting one. When, therefore, she discovered, 
a few weeks after her marriage, that he was already sigh- 
ing at the feet of a Polish countess who had attracted his 
fancy, she considered her husband's fickleness, not with- 
out reason, in the light of the greatest insult which could 
have been offered to her, and allowed Francis Joseph to 

notice the state of her feelings in regard to him. 

103 



The Austrian Court from Within 

The Emperor, in spite of his want of susceptibihty, 
felt hurt, and his vanity suffered far more than his heart. 
He said nothing, but neglected the Empress more and 
more. 

The infatuation of Francis Joseph for the Polish 
countess did not last longer than a few months. Then 
he turned his attention once more to the different young 
actresses, at the Burg Theatre and elsewhere, who were 
conspicuous by their beauty or attractions. Nearly all 
were honoured with his fancy, and his private valet, a 
Tyrolean Jager — who was the only confidant of his 
master's different " escapades " — was kept very busy. 

It was this man who had to escort the ladies to the 
Hofburg by one of the back doors, and who brought them 
back safely to their various homes. His discretion was 
absolute, and quite equalled that of Bontemps and 
Lebel, the famous valets of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. 
Actresses and noble ladies belonging to the highest circles 
of the Austrian aristocracy vied with each other for the 
favours of Francis Joseph, and none of them ever 
succeeded in establishing herself in his heart so sohdly 
that he thought no longer about giving her a rival. 

This was only achieved by a woman who could boast 

neither of ancestry nor position, neither of talent nor 

transcendent beauty. As an actress she had appeared at 

the Burg Theatre, but she attracted no notice there save 

that of Francis Joseph, who took a violent liking for 

her almost immediately for her frank, open expression, 

beautiful eyes, and pleasant mouth and smile. He felt 

104 



First Meeting with Frau Schratt 

sure that, like so many others, she would instantly fall 
into his arms and consider herself as most honoured at 
having found favour with him. To his surprise he dis- 
covered that he had made a great mistake. 

Catherine Schratt was an honest girl, with a keen sense 
of right and wrong, and indifferent to what would have 
been considered by many of her profession as the highest 
honour. When it was hinted to her that the Sovereign 
would like to see her otherwise than upon the stage, she 
began by declaring that she did not quite see how this 
could be managed, because she was not living in conditions 
that allowed her to receive him in her own house, and 
meeting him clandestinely anywhere was out of the 
question. 

The reply was repeated to the Emperor, and greatly 
excited his curiosity. 

One afternoon while sitting at home Catherine was 
surprised to see a tall officer thrusting himself into her 
presence. It was Francis Joseph, who, seeing that the 
mountain would not come to Mahomet, had thought it 
was high time Mahomet should seek the mountain. 

This visit was the prelude to many others, and little 
by little the Monarch got into the habit of seeing every 
day the lady whose friendship had been so difficult to 
win. She proved very tactful, never asking him for any- 
thing, accepting his numerous gifts with extreme reserve, 
not troubling to put any questions to him, and showing 
perfect disinterestedness in all her relations with him. 

She was very clever in private life, though she had not 

105 



The Austrian Court from Within 

shown any particular ability on the stage — a career she 
had entered upon only out of necessity — and her gentle, 
soft manners, keen sympathy and general understanding 
of the difficulties of a position which soon became almost 
unique, won for her as much affection from Francis 
Joseph as his selfish heart could give. 

A curious thing must be added here which may 
astonish many people, but which is none the less fact. 
The Empress, who soon became aware of her husband's 
new infatuation — as she always did all those he indulged 
in — had the curiosity to see Frau Schratt, and actually 
called upon her one day. The impression she pro- 
duced upon her must have been most favourable, because 
from that day Elisabeth was the first one to encourage 
the Emperor in his sympathy for the actress, whose 
influence proved on more than one occasion most useful 
to her. 

Catherine Schratt was full of admiration for the 

Imperial lady, and applied herself to remove as many 

of the causes of disagreement between Francis Joseph 

and his consort as she could. Yet she never meddled 

with intrigue, was neither mercenary nor callous, refused 

nine of every ten presents which were offered to her, 

and whenever she was called upon to give her opinion 

to the Emperor, she did so with strong common sense 

and keen intelligence. She was a remarkable person 

from more points of view than one, and soon she ber 

came such a power in the land that even Prince von 

Montenuovo, who easily got rid of most of the people 

106 



Frau Schratt and Montenuovo 

whom he dishked, found that in her case he had better 
keep quiet, and even try to propitiate her. 

This, however, did not prove easy. Had Frau Schratt 
only cared to do so, she could with the greatest facility 
have influenced her Imperial friend against this overbear- 
ing, insolent favourite who was so generally disliked. But 
this was one of the matters she had promised herself 
never to interfere with. She did not care for people 
to say that she could at her will remove public function- 
aries, and she never allowed anyone to guess that she 
shared the universal feelings of antipathy which Viennese 
society nursed for the Grand Master of the Imperial 
Household. She was a woman who liked plain speaking, 
and it is related that she had found an opportunity to tell 
the Prince that she expected him to leave her alone, 
while in return for this she promised that she would not 
molest him in any way, and would refrain from ever 
expressing any judgment in regard to him to the 
Sovereign. 

Catherine was known to keep her word, and Monte- 
nuovo had come very quickly to the conclusion that he 
had better not attempt a struggle from which he could 
only emerge defeated. 

This was the peculiarity of the gifted, energetic and 
clever woman. She contrived to persuade everybody that 
she was not the kind of creature to injure anyone, pro- 
vided she were left severely alone ; and at last the whole 
of Viennese society, as well as the Imperial Family and 
the people who surrounded the Emperor, began to say 

107 



The Austrian Court from Within 

that she was the best person who could have been found 
to amuse the Sovereign, and to procure for him the 
illusion of a home in his lonely existence. Her presence 
at his side became a recognised fact which was never more 
disputed. 

Having convinced the world that she was a perfectly 
harmless woman, Catherine began to assert herself, and, 
whilst seeming to do nothing, became in reality a great 
deal in the life of the selfish Austrian Monarch. He 
bought for her a lovely villa at Hietzing, a suburb of 
Vienna, which she furnished with admirable taste, helped 
by an unlimited amount of money. She also arranged 
for herself a cottage at Ischl, whither she repaired when- 
ever the Emperor w^ent to the little town which he loves 
so much and where he feels happier than amidst the 
splendours of the Hofburg or of Schonbrunn. It was 
then that both he and Frau Schratt enjoyed their real 
holiday, which no one and nothing ever came to disturb. 
Francis Joseph used to visit the actress every evening — 
even during the lifetime of the Empress, who, though she 
made at times sneering remarks at this intimacy of her 
husband with Frau Schratt, never objected to the long 
hours which he used to spend with her. 

After the assassination of Elisabeth the influence of 
Catherine became even stronger than it had been before. 
She sought to comfort the bereaved widower, who, now 
that his wife was no more, suddenly developed a violent 
affection for her and declared himself inconsolable at her 

death. She humoured him, she read to him, she listened 

108 



Marie Valerie Objects 

to him ; she encouraged him now and then when she 
noticed that he thought it right to assume the attitude 
of one who had lost all interest in life, and she sometimes 
put in a word very softly in his ear about this or that 
matter, going so far sometimes as to slip in a remark on 
political affairs when she thought it necessary. 

The Imperial Family had grown to like her — with the 
exception of the Archduchess Valerie, who, when she saw 
Catherine installed almost in her mother's place, began 
to demur and made violent scenes with her father on the 
subject, insisting that he should break off his association 
with the woman whom some people kept stating he had 
married secretly. At first the Emperor ordered his 
daughter out of the room, declaring that he considered 
it an insolence on her part to assume the role of a moral 
mentor in regard to her own father. Valerie replied that 
if such were the case she would retire to her castle of 
Wallsee, and never more set her foot at Schonbrunn or 
in Vienna. Francis Joseph stood in awe of his daughter. 
Besides, he was warmly attached to his grandchildren, 
perhaps the only human beings for whom he had really 
felt a disinterested affection. He resigned himself, there- 
fore, and told the Archduchess that if such were the case 
he would consent to break off relations with Frau Schratt, 
but only upon one condition — that she would hencefor- 
ward live with him, together with her family. 

Valerie was delighted, and installed herself at Schon- 
brunn, but after two months of her existence there she 

implored her father to resume his old relations with 

109 



The Austrian Court from Within 

Catherine. She had discovered that to be the constant 
companion of a sour, disagreeable, and selfish old man, 
who expected her to be always at his beck and call, and 
who continually bullied and thwarted her, and reproached 
her for making him unhappy, was rather more than she 
could bear. So she returned to her own home, and left 
the Emperor free to renew his relations with the 
fascinating Catherine. 

Perhaps "fascinating" is hardly the right word. 
Frau Schratt had never been handsome in her youth, and 
is at present a stout, middle-aged woman, with no pre- 
tence at all to a figure, white hair, and a fat face which 
occasionally turns red in the wrong place. But she is a 
delightful companion, and an amusing one, too. Her 
kindness is proverbial, and the amount of good which 
she has done is quite wonderful though it will never be 
known. 

When the war broke out she at once established a 
private hospital, which she has kept up out of her private 
means and which she attends every day, helping to nurse 
the sick and the wounded, yet she still found time to spend 
some hours every evening at Schonbrunn, which the 
Emperor, since his last illness, leaves but seldom. Her 
activity, in spite of the years that have crowded upon 
her head, is the same as it was in those distant days when 
Francis Joseph first sought her acquaintance and threw 
her the handkerchief he has never asked her since to 
return to him. 

The Duchess of Hohenberg was a great friend of Frau 

110 



Friendship or Marriage? 

Schratt, though she saw her but seldom. The two ladies 
sympathised with each other, and the consort of the heir- 
presumptive to the throne was credited with the wish of 
trying to arrange a secret marriage of the Emperor with 
the woman who had been such a good friend to him. 
But, although no one in his whole Empire would have 
been found to condemn him for such a step, Francis 
Joseph had far too great an idea as to his own importance 
even to think of giving Catherine this proof of the affec- 
tion with which he professed she had always inspired him. 
He never forgot that he was a Habsburg, and the head 
of that illustrious House, and though he had given consent 
to many members of his family to contract morganatic 
unions, the possibility of his following their example 
never crossed his mind for a single instant. 

It is very much to be questioned whether Fran Schratt 
would ever have consented to become the wife of the 
Sovereign to whom more than twenty years of friendship 
had bound her with such strong fetters that no marriage 
ceremony could have made them tighter. She was a very 
independent woman, and was far too clever not to realise 
that such a change in her position was far more likely to 
prove a burden to her than to add anything to her pres- 
tige. She liked her liberty, and the fact of her clinging 
to it gave her a far stronger hold on the mind, and on 
what existed of heart, of the selfish Francis Joseph than 
she could have obtained by accepting what he would have 
persisted to the end of his days in calling the greatest 

sacrifice he had ever been compelled to make. Her influ- 

111 



The Austrian Court from Within 

ence over him was principally built upon the circumstance 
that she could tell him continually that, whilst he had 
never done anything for her except giving her plenty of 
money — which she could easily have done without — she 
had given up her whole life to him and to his welfare, 
and had thus shown that she cared for him more than 
for anything or anybody else in the world. 

A lot of amusing anecdotes circulate in Vienna con- 
cerning Frau Schratt, more or less true, and justifying 
the French proverb that it is only very rich people who 
find anyone willing to lend them money. Countess 
Larisch quotes a few ; amongst them is one which I am 
rather inclined to think apocryphal. It is to the effect 
that Francis Joseph, having stayed rather later than was 
his wont with Catherine one evening, was surprised, as he 
was leaving the house, by a servant who had been newly 
engaged and did not know him yet. Seeing a strange 
man come out of her mistress's apartments, the servant 
raised the alarm, and upon being told the identity of the 
visitor, began singing the National Anthem in her con- 
fusion at finding herself face to face with her Sovereign. 

It is one of these stories to which one feels inclined 
to apply the old Italian saying : " Si non e vero," etc. 

It is not often one meets with a woman who, having 
the chance to obtain almost everything that she could 
desire in the way of money and rank — Catherine could 
easily have persuaded the Emperor to create her a 
countess or baroness — refuses to avail herself of the 
advantage, and prefers to remain in a relatively obscure, 

112 



The Feelings of Frau Schratt 

and most certainly a false, position. Catherine's case 
would remain quite unexplainable if she had not taken 
care to explain that, being a lonely woman, without any 
ambition save that of getting from life all the comfort 
which she could, she preferred infinitely her personal 
peace to anything else, and did not care to arouse the 
gossip and ill-natured comments of the world on the 
subject of her personality. As she once told one of her 
few intimate friends, she had outlived all the disagree- 
ments of her equivocal position, and could legitimately 
aspire to be left to enjoy quietly the result of years of 
labour, and to minister as she liked to the wants and 
requirements of her old lover. 

Yet she does not care for him a bit — perhaps this is 
one of the most curious features of their connection — 
and she never cared for him even at the time when they 
were both young, with some pretensions to good looks ; 
but she pities him and looks upon him with compassion- 
ate eyes, notwithstanding the fact that he is a powerful 
Sovereign. Perhaps she realises better than most people 
the sad tragedy of a lot which was destined to see so 
many misfortunes, and to survive so many disasters, 
whilst remaining completely unconscious of the tragedy 
in which he was one of the most pathetic actors. She 
likes this old man who was loved by no one and has found 
so few friends. His utter indifference to everything 
which does not concern his own material wants only adds 
to her feelings of compassion for him, and so she clings 
to him as one clings to the remembrance of a good action 
I 113 



The Austrian Court from Within 

which one has performed once upon a time and about 
which no one thinks or speaks. 

Frau Schratt is a good woman, and she has proved it 
all through her existence. It is, however, very much to 
be regretted that she could not use her power over the 
mind of Francis Joseph to induce him to act honourably 
in political as well as in private matters. It is also to 
be deplored that this undoubtedly clever woman never 
allowed her mind to stray farther and higher than ques- 
tions of local interests, and that, through her fear of being 
thought intriguing, she deliberately disinterested herself 
from all that was not of immediate concern to her. 

Perhaps, had she cared to try, Frau Schratt might 
have persuaded the old Emperor that he had reached an 
age where it is doubly sinful to rush into a war, the 
terrible consequences of which were bound to react in a 
most sad and terrible manner on the destinies of his own 
people. But Catherine is, above everything else and 
before everything else, German in her tastes, opinions, 
and points of view. She also was all through her life an 
admirer of that welt politik which Germany is doing its 
best to rush upon humanity, and she has always hated 
Russia with ferocity, partly on account of her strong 
Catholic convictions, which lead her to see in the Greek 
faith a manifestation of the power of the Evil One. The 
Jesuits are her friends, and her Father Confessor belongs 
to that Order. 

Frau Schratt at present is preparing herself q'uietly 

for the time when the Emperor will be no more, and 

114 



What Frau Schratt Hopes 

when she will find herself at liberty to live her own life 
and dispose of it according to her personal inclinations 
which she has been obliged for such a long time to keep 
under control. She would not care to find herself com- 
pelled to renounce any of the material advantages which 
she has reason to believe she will be awarded by the 
will of Francis Joseph, and this is one of the reasons why 
she tries to keep in obscurity and to do nothing likely to 
damage her future prospects with the heir to the throne 
and with his wife. She applies herself to persuade them 
that she is an inoffensive kind of being, who will dis- 
appear out of the scene of her former successes the 
moment that the Emperor has closed his eyes, and that 
consequently they will have no reason to regret having 
shown themselves generous in regard to her. She speaks 
already of the retreat in which she hopes to end her 
days, and which she would like to be as peaceful and as 
free from annoyance as possible. If she is ever im 
patient at anything, it is at the time which goes by 
without bringing her the freedom for which she long". 
She finds sometimes that Francis Joseph has lived a ver\ 
long time, and that she is very tired. But tactful to th 
last, she restrains this manifestation of her sentiment 
even in regard to her own conscience, and quietly wait? 
and waits and waits. 



115 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MAYERLING TRAGEDY 

VOLUMES have been written on the sad subject of 
the tragedy in which perished twenty-five years ago 
the heir to the Austrian Empire, together with the poor 
girl who had hnked her destiny with his. Romances 
without number have been built on the suppositions 
which have been made on all sides as to the causes of this 
extraordinary catastrophe. But so far the riddle has not 
been solved, and the mystery still remains as deep as it 
was on the day following upon the drama. I shall not 
attempt here to bring any new elements to bear on the 
sad and sordid story, and I shall begin by saying that I 
do not know anything more than the general public. 
But still there are certain deductions which can be made 
when one has known the actors of this sensational affair, 
and at all events it is not impossible to examine all the 
different versions which have been circulated, and to 
eliminate the improbabilities with which these abound. 

This process may not bring one nearer to the truth, 
but, on the other hand, it can make one understand the 
psychological conditions under which the pistol shots that 
put an end to the life of the only son of the Emperor 

Francis Joseph could have come to be fired. 

116 



Rumours of Conspiracy 

What I am going to relate is merely the result of my 
personal impressions and observations. I have known 
and spoken both with the Archduke Rudolph and with 
the Baroness Marie Vetsera, and so to a certain extent I 
can draw my own conclusions from the few facts that have 
come to my knowledge. 

That there was less romance in it than has been said 
and supposed I feel absolutely convinced. Politics may 
have played a part in the tragedy, but if this was the 
case it was most certainly not to the extent that some 
people have tried to represent. I do not believe also 
that the Jesuits can have had anything to do with the 
affair. I am not fond of them, but I am firmly convinced 
that the sensational stories related concerning their share 
in the disaster, which, among other things, have appeared 
in extenso, repose on nothing else than the imagination 
of a writer desirous of making himself important by relat- 
ing things which it is impossible to contradict success- 
fully without awakening the remembrance of most 
painful incidents. 

I also refuse to accept the theory that the Crown 
Prince was connected with the Archduke John Salvator, 
the future John Orth, in a political conspiracy against 
his own father. For one thing, he never was upon good 
terms with his cousin five times removed, and a corre- 
spondence which I have had the opportunity to see 
between the latter and a lady from whom he had but few 
secrets mentions Rudolph in terms which absolutely 

exclude any thought of there ever having existed the least 

117 



The Austrian Court from Within 

connivance between them. And, indeed, how could this 
ever be ? If even the Crown Prince had conspired to 
usurp the Hungarian throne, what need was there for him 
to draw into this plot a member of a collateral branch of 
his family who had absolutely nothing to do with it, who 
besides would have been regarded with suspicion by those 
Magyar nobles who must have been included in the con- 
spiracy, and who would not have tolerated any interfer- 
ence from the Toscana branch of the Habsburg family? 
They had never been popular, especially in Hungary, on 
account of the arrest of several rebels of 1848, who, 
having fled to Florence in the hope of remaining tnere 
unmolested, had been arrested by order of the reigning 
Grand Duke, and handed over to the Austrian police. 

Then, again, John Orth was considerably older than 
Rudolph. There existed absolutely no link between 
them, except perhaps that of a violent dislike for each 
other. There is no ground whatever to suppose that they 
were associated in an attempt to bring about a revolution 
in Hungary. 

The tone of the letters to which I have referred gives 
an emphatic denial to the conclusions which we are asked 
to draw about mysterious facts, the details of which, of 
course, are held back from us. Under such circum- 
stances, it is easy to say whatever one likes, but perhaps 
not quite so easy to get impartial people to believe the 
statements. 

Personally, I feel inclined, from certain things that 

have come to my knowledge, to think that the only 

118 




THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLPH 



Rudolph and Marie Vetsera 

political side to this unfortunate romance was the desire 
on the part of certain people to get a hold upon the 
Archduke Rudolph, and to saddle him with a woman 
who might have acquired considerable influence over his 
mind, and perhaps have brought him to follow their lead 
in politics. The plot failed, but it was no fault of theirs 
that it did so, and to hide the game they invented all 
kinds of sensational stories simply to mislead the public 
into looking somewhere else than in the true direction for 
an explanation of the tragedy. 

Now to return to what I personally believe led to the 
tragedy of Mayerling. I had occasion to meet Marie 
Vetsera at Cairo, where she was spending the winter of 
1887, together with her mother and sister. Her father, 
Baron Vetsera, occupied an official post as Austrian Com- 
missary at the Foreign Debt Office, and as soon as his 
family had joined him there, the remarkable beauty of 
his youngest daughter caused her to be immensely talked 
about. 

Cairo was not at that time, and I believe is still not 
a place where a Puritan atmosphere prevails. Gossip 
flourishes in Egypt, a natural consequence of the rela- 
tively small number of Europeans who are standing 
residents at Cairo, and who spend most of their time dis- 
cussing the merits of the many tourists and strangers 
who happen to visit the land of the Pharaohs during the 
winter season. Few cities are as gay as the Egyptian 
capital, and few offer more facilities for flirtations and 
intrigues of all kinds. 

119 



The Austrian Court from Within 

But even in Cairo the flirtations of Mile. Vetsera 
gave rise to comment. She was extraordinarily beau- 
tiful, and seen in evening dress, with her lovely shoulders 
gleaming out of a black gown which set off their white- 
ness, she appeared positively splendid to the person 
who saw her for the first time, so dazzling was her face, 
with its wealth of dark hair shading a low brow, and the 
most magnificent pair of eyes it has ever been my fortune 
to see. Her supple, slender figure had something feline 
about it, so graceful was her every movement. She 
was one of those women who appeal to the physical 
senses of men from the first moment that they see them, 
and she gave one the impression that love, far from being 
a mystery, was known to her in all its details. 

The Vetseras were reputed rich people. In reality it 
was not at all the case. Even at the period to which I am 
referring there were moments when the ladies of the 
family were short of money. They had all the most ex- 
pensive tastes, and the girls had been brought up not to 
deny themselves anything which they might desire to 
have. Marie used to dress far more in the style of a 
married woman than in that of a girl. She discussed 
quite freely many things that a much older person would 
have felt embarrassed to speak about, and she used to 
boast of her many conquests with a zest which jarred on 
the sense of propriety of many people. She was of 
course immensely admired, but not at all liked by the 
feminine portion of Cairo Society. Of this she was quite 

well aware, but simply laughed and snapped her fingers 

120 



Love Affairs of Marie Vetsera 

at the judgments which were passed upon her and upon 
her conduct. 

During the six or seven months which I spent in Cairo, 
Marie Vetsera was the heroine of three love affairs. This 
accounts perhaps for the ease with which she contrived 
to ingratiate herself into the affections of the Crown 
Prince, and for the relative rapidity with which she led 
her intrigue with him forward to its dramatic end. 

Baron Vetsera died in Egypt, and his widow and 
daughters returned to Europe, where I lost sight of them 
until their name came again prominently before the 
public. Then I remembered the lovely dark-eyed girl 
whom I had admired so much a few years before the 
world was filled with her name. The tragedy in which 
she entangled, far more than she was entangled herself, 
the young man who was to enter eternity so unexpectedly 
did not surprise me. I was only astonished that the 
Archduke had been weak enough to succumb to her 
attractions so quickly, for hers was a nature absolutely in- 
capable of understanding the character of Rudolph, with 
all its mysterious intricacies, which he had inherited from 
his mother, together with the blood of the ill-fated House 
of Wittelsbach. 

I met the Austrian Crown Prince just after his com- 
ing of age in 1878 or 1879. I do not remember exactly 
the year. It was during an evening party at the Austrian 
Embassy. 

He was not married at the time, and must have been 

something like twenty or twenty-two years of age. He 

121 



The Austrian Court from Within 

did not strike one as a handsome fellow at all, but never- 
theless was an eminently attractive one. The youthful face 
had an air of gravity which gave it an expression of being 
much older than was actually the case, and the reddish 
tint of his hair was decidedly ugly. But the eyes had a 
dreamy look, full of mystery and of eagerness at the same 
time, which could not fail to win him the sympathies of 
every person with whom he entered into conversation. 

Rudolph gave the impression of being something quite 
different from what one expected, and a certain abrupt- 
ness in his language set one wondering what causes for 
impatience and dissatisfaction he could have. His man- 
ners showed extreme politeness and courtesy, but were 
rather cold and not exempt from a shade of disdain, which 
to many women would have afforded a pretext for trying 
to break it down. He did not dance, excusing himself 
under the pretext of family mourning, which I remember 
was commented upon not over graciously by Society, who 
would have liked to see him spinning about the ball-room 
with one of its daughters on his arm. His air was entirely 
Austrian, and the characteristic lower lip of the Habs- 
burgs was even more prominent in him than in other 
members of his family, a fact, by the way, which did not 
add to the pleasantness of his appearance. 

So much for the physical side. Intellectually, the 
young Archduke was an extremely superior man, as I 
found in a conversation I had with him which touched 
upon serious subjects; literature, which he had at his 
fingers' ends ; art and social questions ; and I was im- 

122 



Culture of the Crown Prince 

mensely struck by the universality of his knowledge and by 
the maturity of his thoughts. I was very young at the 
time, and probably would to-day have drawn him more 
than I could do then, so as to get an inkling as to his real 
views, opinions and ideas. 

I remember to this day certain remarks that the 
Crown Prince made to me, which, judged by subse- 
quent events, were of a nature capable of throwing a 
light on the yearnings of a soul that was dissatisfied with 
everything because it had always obtained all that it had 
wanted. For instance, as we were discussing a volume 
of the French Revolution by Taine which had appeared 
recently, he uttered these remarkable words : "I think 
that for many people of that time the death which they 
met and had to face was a great mercy. It saved them 
from awakening to their disillusions as to the gods which 
they had been worshipping." I looked up to him for 
an explanation : " Yes," he added, " these people, when 
they gave themselves heart and soul to the demons 
of demagogy, believed sincerely that they were working 
for the good of the community. Just fancy what they 
would have felt when brought face to face with the 
hideous reality, and saw that behind all these protesta- 
tions of attachment to a great idea there lurked thoughts 
of personal revenge, and often pure love of gain, le ' Otes 
toi pour que je m'y mette ' which rules us all, or nearly 
all, in our daily struggle for life. Far better die than go 
on living after such a disillusion." 

Though more than a quarter of a century has passed 

123 



The Austrian Court from Within 

since this conversation, I can still hear the low, serious 
voice of the Crown Prince as he uttered these words that 
seemed to come from his very soul. He was usually very 
earnest in all that he said, and spoke slowly, as if he wanted 
to weigh carefully every syllable. One could guess that 
his was a passionate, sensitive nature kept under restraint. 

Those who knew his mother affirm that he had a great 
deal in common with her. Both showed the same restless- 
ness and aspiration toward better things than those which 
they had already, the same longing for something unknown 
and unobtainable, the same proud disdain and loathing for 
what they felt to be beneath them, and also the same 
hunted look in the eyes which revealed to an observant 
spectator that there was something not rightly balanced 
in their minds. For instance, the Archduke, whilst 
speaking to one, had the curious knack of suddenly stop- 
ping in the midst of a phrase, remaining silent for a few 
minutes, and then, without apparently noticing it, begin 
talking about subjects absolutely different from those 
which he had been discussing before. This led people 
to think that he wanted to be uncivil to them, and pro- 
cured him many enemies, but I am convinced that he was 
not in the least aware of this peculiarity of his, and quite 
unconscious of the unpleasant impression which it pro- 
duced on his listeners. 

The education of the Crown Prince, though an ex- 
cellent one from the intellectual point of view, had not 
developed noble qualities or taught him the joys of 

unselfishness. It is true he had, at least in his younger 

124 



The Empress and Her Son 

days, that sense of duty toward the head of the House 
which is so developed in all the Habsburgs ; but I ques- 
tion whether he had ever felt any real affection for the 
Emperor with whom he had never been upon good terms 
ever since he had been allowed to have a certain independ- 
ence and a separate household of his own. 

His relations with his mother have been discussed in 
many ways, and some people have said that these had 
never been tender, and that the Empress did not care for 
him in the least. Others have affirmed that he was the 
only being whom she loved, and that her affection for 
him was passionately returned. I think that both these 
versions are not exact, and that the truth lies between 
the two. Elisabeth had never been allowed to train her 
son according to her personal views, and, besides, had ex- 
perienced in regard to him and to his sisters the curious 
feeling which in some rare cases makes a woman in- 
different to the children whose father has become an 
object of dislike or of hatred to her. But later on, and 
particularly during the last years of the Crown Prince's 
life, an intimacy which was daily growing stronger had 
established itself between Rudolph and the Empress, 
especially since the latter had discovered the unhappy life 
led by her son with his wife, the tactless Princess 
Stephanie. 

The Empress attempted to soothe the Archduke 
and to instil resignation to his lot ; she tried to per- 
suade him to avoid anything likely to lead to a scandal 

where he might have been irremediably compromised. 

125 



The Austrian Court from Within 

The fact that for a long time he had had no children of 
his own, and then that only one daughter had been born 
to him, was a source of great grief to both the Empress 
and her son. Rudolph felt aggrieved at the disappoint- 
ment of his hopes, and he took this as an excuse to spend 
a great deal of his time away from her with companions 
of his own choice. In consequence the Princess felt 
affronted, and did not make a secret of the fact, so that 
the relations of the couple got worse and worse every day. 

It was at this juncture that some people whose 
ambition made them desire to exercise an influence on the 
future Emperor threw the Baroness Marie Vetsera in 
his way, in the hope that she would succeed in getting 
hold of his imagination first and of his heart afterwards. 
The girl played most cleverly the game of those who had 
instructed her, one of the aims of which was to induce 
the Crown Prince to assure her future in such a liberal 
manner that afterwards she would be able to go on lead- 
ing the luxurious existence to which she had been used, 
without any fear as to the morrow. 

Marie Vetsera pretended that she was in love with 
Rudolph, declared that she would die rather than lose 
him, and entangled him so well that at last he did not 
know how to get out of the net. That he thought of a 
divorce from his wife is almost certain, but it is still a 
matter of much doubt whether, had he obtained his 
liberty, he would have forfeited it again for the sake of a 
girl he was too experienced a man not to have appreciated 
as she deserved ; and surely this knowledge was sufficient 

126 



Marie Vetsera's Influence 

to prevent him from irretrievably compromising himself 
for her, and sacrificing all his future prospects ? 

What also seems to have been proved, and has been 
known among the small circle of people who are aware 
of the inner aspects of the tragedy, is the fact that, in 
order to strengthen her influence over the Archduke, 
Marie Vetsera got him into the habit of taking drugs, such 
as opium and morphine. This pernicious habit, which 
was the more dangerous for him as nervous diseases were 
hereditary among the Habsburgs as well as among the 
Wittelsbachs, was one of the principal causes of the drama, 
and at all events played a conspicuous part in its sordid 
details. Politics may have had to do with it, inasmuch as 
the Crown Prince was on friendly terms with certain 
Austrian and Hungarian statesmen who were known to 
stand in opposition to the policy pursued by the Govern- 
ment and to dislike the Emperor personally ; but to 
conclude from this fact that he aspired to usurp his 
father's crown is going rather too far, and is not justified 
by all that we know concerning the character and the 
inclinations of Rudolph. 

It is far more likely that, worn out by the abuse of 
drugs, he allowed himself to be carried away by one of 
the disillusions to which he had alluded in his conversation 
with myself which I have related, and had hoped to find 
in death the solutions of the mostly imaginary difficulties 
in which he fancied that he had become entangled. 

There is also another point to be considered. If he 
had really loved Marie Vetsera, and the efforts of those 

127 



The Austrian Court from Within 

who had begun to get alarmed at the consequences of his 
connection with her had at last proved to him that she had 
not been an innocent girl when he had first met her, it is 
quite possible that, disgusted with the deceit which had 
been practised in regard to him and to his feelings, he 
had decided to break with her. 

What goes somewhat to confirm this last supposition 
is the undoubted fact that his relations with the misguided 
woman who was to expiate so cruelly her unworthy 
ambition had become considerably cooler during the last 
weeks which preceded the tragedy. He had refused to 
see her at different times, and she had almost forced 
herself into his presence at last, thanks to complicity. 
She had followed him against his will to Mayerling, as 
has been proved by a note of his addressed to one of his 
personal friends, in which he said that he wanted to get a 
few days' rest at his shooting-box, so as to recover the 
equanimity that he wanted so badly after the unpleasant- 
nesses which he had had lately. This does not point at 
all to any intention on his part of asking Marie to share 
his solitude. It is also certain that she it was who obliged 
the coachman Bratfisch to drive her to the place whence 
she was never to return. 

If we put all these circumstances together, we find 
that what is most likely is that, when she forced herself 
upon Rudolph, the latter may have been moved by 
remnants of affection for her, and the usual consequences 
of such violent rapprochements had taken place. Per- 
haps when he had recovered his presence of mind, he had 

128 




. / 





BARONESS MARIE VETSERA 



The Fatal Shots 

expressed to her his disgust at her conduct ; perhaps, also, 
maddened by the abuse of drugs, he had allowed himself 
to exercise some violence upon her; or, maybe, she 
had in her rage fired against him that pistol shot which 
was to end his days. Perhaps he simply was tired of life, 
and, in his desire to have done with it, had thought it 
better before he destroyed himself to kill the woman 
through whom he had suffered so much. Who knows? 
One thing however is certain, and adds to the riddle 
which surrounds this death. The head of the Crown 
Prince was shattered at the back, whilst the wounds of 
Marie Vetsera had been inflicted in the middle of her face. 
Whether there is any conclusion to be drawn from this 
circumstance it is not for me to say. 

The body of Rudolph was taken back to Vienna, 
where in the silence of the night, previous to its being 
removed to the Augustine Chapel situated in the Hofburg 
itself, the Emperor, together with the Empress, came to 
kneel down and pray beside the coffin of their only son, 
that had been deposited in the room which he had 
occupied during his lifetime. What passed in the hearts 
and souls of the bereaved parents during this mournful 
vigil it is impossible to say. Perhaps in the anguish 
caused by this appalling catastrophe Francis Joseph 
repented of his harshness toward the young man who had 
thus perished so miserably, as also of the neglect with 
which he had treated the wife who was prostrate on the 
ground beside him, sobbing aloud the agony of her soul. 
After the Mayerling tragedy their relations became, if 
J 129 



The Austrian Court from Within 

not tender, at least much more friendly than had been the 
case before it had crushed them with its weight. But the 
heart of Elisabeth had received a wound from which it 
was never to recover, and the secret of the desperate act 
which deprived the throne of Austria of its heir-apparent 
is still to this day surrounded with as much mystery as 
was the case during the first hours that followed upon its 
horror. 

There is a sordid side to it which, out of respect for 
the memory of the dead, ought to have been avoided. 
The body of Marie Vetsera was taken away from Mayer- 
ling under conditions which throw the shadow of eternal 
disgrace upon those who were responsible for them. The 
miserable girl, who had lost her life under such appalling 
circumstances, was buried with a haste that nothing 
justified or excused in the churchyard of the Abbey of 
Heiligenkreuz, in the neighbourhood of the shooting-box 
where she had met her end. There was no priest to say 
a last prayer over her remains, no friends to accompany 
her to her grave. Her two uncles alone were allowed to 
be present when the earth was shovelled over her mortal 
remains. She who had dreamt of a throne did not even 
get a tomb ! 



130 



CHAPTER VIII 

AMONG SOCIETY IN VIENNA 

XT is most difficult for a foreigner to get to know Vienna 
-■- society well enough to be able to come to any 
definite conclusions as to its moral and intellectual 
standard. For one thing, the highest circles of Austrian 
aristocracy are very exclusive, and do not easily allow 
strangers to penetrate into their intimacy. Even diplo- 
mats who have spent years in the Danube city have 
confessed to me that, beyond being invited to official 
dinners and parties at official houses, they have had but 
few opportunities to learn the inner socialities of Austrian 
society. Viennese society can be divided into those 
people who are admitted at Court and those who have 
not that privilege. Beyond any doubt the latter are the 
most entertaining. 

The aristocracy has constantly intermarried with each 
other — at least, those members of it who belong to the 
families which figure in the second part of the Almanack 
de Gotha. All the Lobkowitzs, Auerspergs, Liechten- 
steins, Trauttmansdorffs and Schwarzenbergs are so 
closely allied that they can be said to constitute one large 
family, a fact which is further emphasised by the custom 

which prevails among them to use the familiar *' Du " 

131 



The Austrian Court from Within 

or " Thou " whenever speaking to each other. This is not 
merely the bad custom which it is supposed to be. It 
also serves as a link between the people who consider 
themselves as somewhat superior to their neighbours, and 
thus assert this difference between them and common 
mortals. 

The principal occupation of these privileged few con- 
sists in discussing the births, marriages and deaths of their 
acquaintances and friends and the sayings and doings of 
the Imperial family. They scarcely ever read; their 
knowledge of art is exceeding^ limited ; they have abso- 
lutely no general interests; politics remain to them a 
closed book except when they concern the welfare of the 
Austrian Empire, and even then occupy them from the 
arrogant, but not from the instructive point of view. 
They are aU exceedingly religious, would rather die than 
miss going to Mass every Sunday. This fact does not 
make them more charitable in regard to their neighbours. 
They view mixed marriages with the greatest horror, and 
a Protestant alliance is to them a mortal sin ; their greatest 
pleasures consist in the acquisition of a fast horse for the 
men, and pretty dresses for the women. They are always 
happy because they feel so contented with the world they 
have been born into, and the position which they occupy 
in it. When the ruthless hand of care touches them, they 
accept its blows with a pathetic resignation because their 
sorrows are only those which, in the course of nature, are 
bound to fall upon every human creature — ^loss of parents, 

children, friends, or money, and so forth. The storms 

132 



The Cult of Gossip 

that shake the soul with passion, love, or remorse remain 
always unknown to them. 

The Jesuit Father who generally rules the lives and 
the consciences of those born within that circle, has 
trained them into a state of perfect indifference to aught 
else but the selfishness which is the dominant feature in 
their comfortable characters. They can be ill-natured in 
a stupid, aggressive kind of manner, which hurts but does 
not wound those who are the objects of their sarcasm 
and disapproval. Thej^ like sometimes to harm those 
with whom they do not agree, but they immediately feel 
sorry for it; after which they begin doing it over again 
with a placid indifference to the evil which they perpetrate 
that allows them to feel and to remain as content as a 
quiet conscience and a good digestion allows. 

Gossip is the favourite occupation of Viennese ladies 
of the higher classes. Every small incident gives them 
an opportunity to enjoy that pastime. In most cases the 
mistakes made by foreigners concerning the etiquette 
prevailing at Court or in Society constitute the chief 
objects of the criticisms of the fair beings who visit each 
other in the afternoon and meet at their dressmakers in 
the morning. Love affairs are not frequent, and when- 
ever they happen are only mentioned in undertones as 
something absolutely shocking. Fashionable young men 
are supposed to seek their pleasures outside the pale of 
Society, and if they do make an incursion there are 
promptly discouraged, thanks to the publicity in which 

women live, which obliges them in a certain sense to 

133 



The Austrian Court from Within 

account for all their actions not only to their husbands, 
fathers and mothers, uncles, aunts and cousins, but also 
to Mrs. Grundy. 

This, of course, applies to the very highest circle of the 
aristocracy, where anyone not a Serene Highness is re- 
fused admittance except on sufferance. There is a Smart 
Set at Vienna, as everywhere else, but it is looked upon 
with distinct disfavour by those who rule society and 
those Dowagers who turn away their faces with an ex- 
pression of disgust and dismay whenever the names of 
these stray sheep are mentioned. 

What is so unpleasant about Austrians is their 
manners. For one thing, they are all loud to a degree 
which takes one's breath away before one has grown 
accustomed to it. When you are in a Viennese drawing- 
room you feel quite deafened at first by the screams 
which greet your ears. Everybody shouts at everybody 
else, and the noise gets absolutely deafening whenever 
three or four people are gathered in one place. Both men 
and women smoke large cigars without the least com- 
punction, and puff away in your face without suspecting 
that you may not like it. They all expect you to conform 
to their habits, to care for what they enjoy, to be amused 
by what interests them. In short, they believe you are 
born for them, but not they for the world. 

Of course, this helps to make them happy, but it does 
not tend to favour sociability ; that can only subsist on the 
system of giving and taking — Austrians only take. 

I have been told that in former times social life in 

134 



Ennui a Normal State 

Vienna was very pleasant. It can hardly be called so 
nowadays. For one thing, most people like to live quietly, 
and though the aristocracy have their own palaces in 
Vienna, they rarely dwell in them, spending the greater 
part of their time in the country, where most of them 
possess splendid castles and estates, and where the men 
can indulge in their favourite occupation of shooting 
every kind of animal that comes within range. 

The women do nothing, when they do not shoot; 
anything more deadly dull, indeed, than a country house 
visit in Austria does not exist in the whole of the world. 
Small talk even is only upon local subjects, and devoid 
of that spice which alone can lend some animation to it. 
An Austrian of the upper classes could not be witty, no 
matter how hard he tried. This ignorance and indiffer- 
ence to everything which is not immediately connected 
with their personal welfare have very much to do with 
the direction which Austrian politics has assumed during 
the last twenty-five years or so. Having been almost 
exclusively in the hands of men belonging by their birth 
to the high aristocracy, they have forcibly reflected the 
incapacity of those who directed them, as well as their 
prejudices, of which whole legions existed. Austria is 
atrophied, and her great misfortune consists in the fact 
that, though aware of it, she yet refuses to call to her 
rescue fresh strengths and fresh minds capable of pulling 
the creaking chariot of the State out of the mire in which 
it is embedded ; its drivers merely look on, and feel happy 

without knowing why. 

135 



The Austrian Court from Within 

My readers may think me severe, but I would ask 
them to look around and see whether there is one single 
man on the horizon of Vienna society who could aspire 
to be called a statesman. All those who play a part 
of some kind in the public life of the country are Hun- 
garians, not Austrians ; and Hungary it will be who will 
say the last word when the question of the settlement of 
the difficulties that have sprung into existence with the 
present war will come to be discussed. The incapacity 
displayed by Count Berchtold and his colleagues will have 
to be remedied in the future by someone or other among 
Hungarian political men. 

After the Congress of Vienna, the society of that town 
became more cosmopolitan, thanks to the strong foreign 
contingent which the deliberations of that famous 
assembly had brought to the Austrian capital. Little by 
little, however, this character was lost, and Viennese 
citizens became simply badly brought up Germans. 
Refinement disappeared, and the moral standard of the 
people fell to a parallel with their ideas of bodily comforts. 
Anything more dismaying than a guest's room, for 
instance, in a country house has never been seen. Its 
furniture consists generally of a narrow bed with sheets 
like pocket-handkerchiefs, and wash-basins like tea-cups. 
Everything else is built on the same scale. 

It is easy to believe that under these conditions social 
life in Vienna does not offer many resources to the 
foreigner, even if he arrives there with the best of 
introductions. The Court gives one or two balls during 

136 



Archaic Distinctions 

the winter season — at least, it used to do so until the war 
— and these are always widely commented upon, on 
account of the invitations issued. There exist any 
number of subtle distinctions as to who has the right to 
be asked to these festivities, and Spanish etiquette still 
prevails in all its strictness at the Hofburg. Those who 
cannot boast of the necessary quarterings and pedigrees 
giving them the entry into the palace have perforce to 
resign themselves to be excluded from these balls, no 
matter what may be their official and social positions. 
Husbands are asked without their wives, and wives, when 
they are the lucky owners of the Order of the Starred 
Cross, can be admitted without their husbands. At 
certain balls, even high birth is not sufficient to procure 
an invitation, and one must be a Privy Councillor or an 
Imperial Chamberlain to receive one. 

This explains why almost every young man of the 
aristocracy holds the latter office, whilst upon her mar- 
riage every woman within that exclusive circle is given the 
decoration without which the doors of the Hofburg would 
remain closed before her. Receptions are simply the 
public acknowledgment that you have a father and mother 
worth mentioning, but not that you are a welcome guest 
on the strength of your own merits. 

Among the Archdukes and Archduchesses the only 

ones who show some hospitality to their friends are the 

Archduke Frederick and his wife, the Archduchess 

Isabella, who partly to amuse their numerous daughters, 

and partly because they like to see people fill the 

137 



The Austrian Court from Within 

magnificent rooms of their splendid palace, hold a few 
functions every winter. These are mostly very well 
arranged, and less dull than the receptions at the Hof- 
burg. The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland also open 
the gates of their lovely Vienna residence to Society. 
Among all the Royal and Imperial personages who com- 
pose the upper ten of the city, the Duke and Duchess 
stand almost alone in treating their guests in that familiar 
manner which allows people to realise that they are made 
of the same clay as those who invite them. 

Few, also, among the Court officials care for enter- 
taining. Sometimes the great Chamberlain, Count 
Lanckoronski, throws open the doors of his patrimonial 
residence and receives in great state the whole Society of 
Vienna. He is a Pole and a clever man, with none of the 
cold haughtiness peculiar to Austrians, a great reader, 
and a pleasant companion, with a keen taste for art and 
literature, and consummate knowledge of the world. 

Then once a year, on the 81st of December, the 
Princess of Trauttmansdorff receives with much ceremony 
all the ladies of note in Society and the wives of the 
diplomats. She is Mistress of the Imperial Household, 
accepting the New Year wishes of their faithful subjects 
on behalf of the Emperor and the dead Empress. This 
yearly reception is remarkable because the Princess is not 
permitted by the prevailing etiquette to shake hands with 
anyone, not even with the womenfolk of the Ambassa- 
dors, a circumstance which has always aroused the ire of 

these ladies, who make no secret of their indignation at 

138 



Old, but Not Venerable 

what they consider to be a piece of insolence. The 
Princess herself is quite miserable at being compelled thus 
to show herself discourteous, and has more than once 
applied to Francis Joseph for permission to ignore this 
superannuated rule, but without success. The Emperor 
seems to think that if she shook hands with anyone the 
dignity of the House of Habsburg would be compromised 
for ever. 

It is by the help of these distinctions and customs, 
which, in spite of the march of time, are to-day what they 
were three hundred years ago, that the Austrian Court 
believes it maintains its dignity in the world. The 
aristocracy follows the example of the Court, and is im- 
bued w^ith the same spirit, with the result that both have 
outlived themselves, are no longer respected or feared, and 
produce the impression of something which, though very 
old, is still not venerable. 

Lately a few young Archduchesses, having wedded 
common mortals in possession of great titles and consider- 
able worldly goods, have brought with them in the 
families into which they have entered the etiquette that 
had prevailed in their single days. This has added stiff- 
ness to what was already a very stiff regime. 

Very few private people entertain in Vienna except in 
a formal way, and of these also the number is limited. 
Public balls take place every winter, which, being always 
given for some charitable purpose, attract a considerable 
number, bringing together the different sets which com- 
pose the society of the capital. But the men and women 

139 



The Austrian Court from Within 

who have spoken with each other during a whole evening, 
danced and supped together at these affairs, scarcely bow 
to each other when they meet the next day, while each 
ignores the other entirely when they do not belong to 
the same coterie. A like remark can be applied to the 
love affairs of certain ladies of the upper set. They flirt 
wildly with men whom they refuse either to know or to 
receive at their own houses. 

Finance has lately come very much to the front in 
Vienna. Formerly it would have been quite impossible 
for a banker to have been admitted into very select 
Society. But with the advent of the famous Princess 
Pauline Metternich things changed considerably. She 
brought with her to the Austrian capital the camaraderie 
which she had exhibited in Paris, and immediately sur- 
rounded herself with people who amused her, or who 
could prove useful to some of the numerous schemes in 
which she was continually indulging. She was so 
independent that it became easy for her to brave the 
customs prevailing amongst her set, and the first thing 
which she did was to invite the Baron Hirsch, and as 
many of his co-religionaries as she could find, to her 
hospitable house, much to the scandal of her friends. 
These friends, however, before long followed the lead 
which she had given, and began also to frequent the 
houses of the wealthy Jews and the financiers of Vienna. 

The Princess had chosen for her particular friend the 

late Baron Nathaniel Kothschild. Hardly a day passed 

without his coming to see her. She used to call him 

140 



Princess Pauline Metternich 

her Jew, " mein Jude,'' and by this piece of arrogance, 
to which it is surprising that the Baron submitted, she 
imagined that she made plain the difference which 
existed between her social rank and his, of which she 
remained at heart perfectly aware, though, just to spite 
and to annoy a Society she had never liked, she seemed 
to forget it. The Princess Metternich was a grande dame 
by birth, but — by the absence of cold haughtiness from 
her usual ways — it is to be questioned whether she would 
always have been considered as such anywhere else but 
in her beloved Vienna, where the cab drivers still sing her 
praises, and the waiters in restaurants speak of her as 
"Our Pauline." 

In spite of her originality and enterprise — perhaps on 
account of these traits — the Princess Pauline never made 
a position for herself in Vienna which could be compared 
to the one which had been occupied half a century before 
her time by the Princess Lory Schwarzenberg, whose in- 
fluence over the men and women of her generation is 
remembered to this day. After Princess Lory, another 
great lady, the Countess Clotilde Clam-Gallas, held an 
undisputed sway over the society of the Viennese capital, 
where her salon exercised a real power, and where it was 
considered a special privilege to be admitted. The 
Countess Clam was an exceedingly clever and inteUigent 
woman, with little of Austrian narrowness. She took a 
keen interest in politics, and from time to time the states- 
men in power did not disdain to consult her. W^hen she 

died, there disappeared with her the last representative 

141 



The Austrian Court from Within 

of a generation that had looked beyond a big cigar and a 
pretty gown for its enjoyments. At present Society in 
Vienna is remarkable for the absence of outstanding 
personalities. 

In the financial circles, however, as I have already 
mentioned, can be found men and women of talent and of 
excellent education. Young diplomats, above the fear of 
being compromised, frequent this special milieu, where 
most interesting people are to be met. 

Then there are the Hungarian elements, which con- 
stitute a special set of their own. Here, beautiful women 
are to be met in plenty, considerable elegance prevails, 
and one can find individuals of unusual charm and attrac- 
tion. The Princess Festetics, for instance, belongs to this 
set. She owes to her English birth and parentage most 
of the qualities which make her such an exclusively 
sympathetic and graceful woman. There is the Polish 
set, also entertaining, where perhaps one can meet with 
more seriousness than anywhere else in Vienna, and 
amidst which there are to be found women like the 
Countess Roman Potocka, who is quite certainly one of 
the most remarkable persons of her generation, and only 
inferior in intelligence and in knowledge to her own 
mother, the regretted Princess Radzi will, who died a few 
months ago. But all these are not Austrians, nor 
Viennese ; they are foreigners, in spite of the fact that 
they are subjects of the Austrian Empire. One cannot 
speak of them or judge them as one would speak or judge 

of the pure-bred Austrians, whose boredom, insufficiency, 

142 



A Satellite of Prussia 

arrogance and ignorance, stamp the most exclusive society 
of the capital that owns Francis Joseph for its Kaiser. 

Can one wonder, therefore, that, guided by such 
people, Austrian politics has become the despicable cult 
it is to-day ? Can one feel surprised that a country where 
the upper classes have lost the sense of the duties which 
their position implies, where their sole occupations are of 
the emptiest, silliest order, has drifted into the position of 
a subordinate to the first strong element that gave itself 
the trouble to exploit it for its own profit? 

Austria has ceased to exist independently ; she is the 
satellite of Prussia ; the Prussian spirit alone rules her 
and guides all her actions. She has a Sovereign, it is 
true, but he is a mere puppet in the hands of circum- 
stance, as well as of men. She has a Government which 
inspires no respect, which is unable to guide itself, or 
to give its officials prestige. She has an army which 
must always implore and rely on foreign help to make a 
stand before its adversaries. She has a clergy, but what 
influence can this clergy acquire when everybody knows 
that it is entirelj^ dependent on the aristocracy for its sup- 
port, and troubles but little about the poor and the 
humble of this world.'* She has a nobility, but what 
esteem can this nobility pretend to, when it is hardly able 
to read and write, when it has learnt nothing and still 
believes itself in an age when it was sufficient to have had 
ancestors to be feared and considered? 

When we examine all these facts, when we review the 

present situation in which Austria has placed herself 

143 



The Austrian Court from Within 

to-day, we can only come to one conclusion, and that is 
that when we catch ourselves thinking that she can be of 
some account in the final settlement of Europe, when it 
takes place, we make a gross mistake. Austria will not 
be considered by anyone, not even by Germany, whose 
lead she has so obediently followed. She will find out that 
she has sacrificed her independence to false and mistaken 
expectations. 



144 



CHAPTER IX 

HUNGARY : ITS POLITICAL MEN AND SOCIAL LIFE 

AMONG his many titles, the one of which Francis 
-^"^ Joseph ought to be most proud is that of King of 
Hungary, but in reahty this has never been the case. 
Although he affected great sympathy for his Magyar 
subjects, and although he showed them the greatest con- 
sideration upon every possible occasion, at heart he has 
never forgiven them for their rebellion in 1848. With 
the Empress it was different. Elisabeth had been popular 
in Hungary from the first day that she had appeared 
there in the glory of her womanhood and of her wondrous 
beauty. She had learned the Hungarian language, too, 
with much greater thoroughness than her consort ever suc- 
ceeded in doing, and could talk to her subjects at Budapest 
in their own tongue just as well as she could converse with 
her Viennese subjects. Then, too, she spent some weeks 
every autumn at her shooting-box at GodoUo, where she 
could enjoy some hunting, an exercise which she pre- 
ferred to all others. She also felt far more at her ease 
at Budapest than in Vienna, where she had to live 
under the sway of an etiquette which she hated with all 
her soul. 

As I have stated already, it is a question whether the 

K 145 



The Austrian Court from Within 

reconciliation which took place between the Emperor and 

Hungary, and which ended with his solemn coronation on 

the plains of Buda, could ever have occurred had it not 

been for the intervention of the Empress Elisabeth, who 

had exerted all the influence which she possessed over 

her husband, as well as over the leading personages of 

the Hungarian aristocracy, to bring it about. Francis 

Joseph had submitted to it, accepted it, endorsed it, but 

had never rejoiced at it nor been sincere in his assurances 

that its accomplishment had given his heart one of its 

dearest wishes and desires. He feared the too great 

influence which, after his acceptance of the Hungarian 

constitution, the nobility and political men of that 

country might come to take in the conduct of the affairs 

of his Monarchy. 

Francis Joseph would have infinitely preferred seeing 

the Magyars relegated to an inferior rank, and not able 

to interfere in the business of the State. The Emperor 

dimly perceived that Austria was bound within a certain 

time to become absorbed in its more vigorous partner, 

and that the Dual Monarchy might very easily end by 

being a one-sided affair, in which Hungary would have 

the better part. His previsions were not mistaken, 

but he could not bring himself to look kindly upon 

the new political constellation that formed itself around 

him, nor to forgive his Hungarian subjects for the 

important place which he felt himself compelled to 

award to them in matters of State. With his Prime 

Minister, Count Andrassy, whom in former years he 

146 



Count Andrassy 

had condemned to death, Francis Joseph never felt 
at ease, and was not sorry when events turned out so 
that he had to part from him. Yet Count Andrassy 
was a great Minister, a great historical figure, though 
he was not a great man. 

It was Count Andrassy who started the Austro-Hun- 
garian Monarchy on a new road, and inaugurated the 
Austro-German aUiance. No one could have believed 
such a compact ever possible after the disaster of Sadowa, 
but he had the instinct to guess the greatness of the 
intrigue into which Prince Bismarck inveigled Austrian 
politics by drawing them into the sphere of German 
political activity and against Russia, which, with its 
influence over the Balkans on the one side, and over 
France on the other, was the common enemy of Teu- 
tonism. 

Count Andrassy was an extremely clever man, with a 
brilliant wit and something dashing about him which gave 
a tinge of romanticism to his whole personality. He was 
not handsome, having a decidedly gipsy type of face, but I 
do not think I ever saw a man looking more elegant than 
he when in the Hungarian dress he was fond of wearing 
upon State occasions. He was a charming companion, 
and had the rare talent of making people forget his 
undoubted superficiality in regard to his general know- 
ledge, while remembering only the genuine talents with 
which Nature had endowed him. 

The Prime Minister could seize and appreciate the 

value of those grand political conceptions of which Prince 

147 



The Austrian Court from Within 

Bismarck was a master, and had enough perception 
to understand that it would be to the advantage of his 
beloved Hungary to enter into them. Without him 
the famous Triple Alliance — concerning which such 
torrents of ink have been spilt — could hardly have been 
concluded, as, notwithstanding the hugeness of his intel- 
lect and of his superiority. Prince Bismarck alone would 
never have been able to render it acceptable to public 
opinion in Hungary, even if Austria were prepared to 
swallow it, owing to her inability to understand with what 
danger it was fraught for her future. Count Andrassy 
was a power in the land of his birth and believed in by a 
large party. He had realised one fact, which, however, 
he was careful enough not to point out to other people — 
that in the end the Triple Alliance was bound to throw 
Austria into the German confederation, either before or 
after a Continental war, and that this incorporation would 
mean the complete independence of Hungary from the 
Habsburgs and their dynasty, a thing which had been 
the aim of Andrassy 's whole life as well as of all his efforts 
as a politician. 

Though no one understood or guessed what the Count 
had had in his mind when he had extended to Bismarck 
the hand of a friendship which at the bottom was both 
insincere and interested, yet the policy inaugurated by 
Andrassy was to mature after he had disappeared from 
the political scene, in the sense that as Hungary developed 
it became more and more independent of Austrian con- 
trol. Finally, Hungary succeeded in imposing her own 

148 



Hungarian Domination 

statesmen and politicians on the Emperor Francis Joseph, 
obUging him to look toward people like Count Tisza or 
Count Apponyi for his advisers, and impressing him with 
the necessity of always consulting them, or any colleagues 
they might have, whenever he found himself faced by 
difficulties in the administration of the vast Dual^ 
Monarchy which owned him for its chief. 

The Emperor, very decidedly, never appreciated nor 
liked that kind of thing, but he became used to it 
nevertheless, and soon Budapest secured a deciding voice 
in all questions concerning international politics as well 
as respecting the interior administration of the Empire. 
Budapest gradually became the master at the Hofburg 
as well as the Ball Platz, and this though she was still 
considered by many as merely being tolerated out of 
kindness and only allowed to remain on sufferance. 

It is just as well to say at once that Hungary deserved 
the leading part which it had secured in the affairs of 
the Dual Monarchy. Hungarians are certainly more 
clever than Austrians ; they are brought up far more 
practically and earnestly, and with infinitely fewer preju- 
dices. They are a proud race, but have none of the 
overbearing arrogance, based on ignorance, which is such 
a distinctive feature of the Austrian character, especially 
among the upper classes. They are not so much under 
the influence of the clergy, and are broad and liberal in 
their opinions. 

The cleverest diplomats that Austria has had during 

the last twenty-five years or so have been Hungarians. 

149 



The Austrian Court from Within 

Of course, I make an exception for Count Aerenthal, 
who was all that a Jew ought to be, and who, in spite of 
his affected sympathies for Hungary, would have infinitely 
preferred she had never existed. He was clever enough 
to be quite aware that the haughty Magyars had never 
accepted him as quite their equal, and that, moreover, 
they were not partisans of any policy of adventure in 
which they could not find their own immediate advan- 
tage. The only point upon which they were in accord 
was their undying hatred of Russia, which, however 
explainable on the part of Hungarians, savoured of in- 
gratitude on the part of Austria. The leaders of the 
opposition parties in Budapest were all clever people, 
with an aim which was quite clear and distinct in their 
minds, thus contrasting vividly with the nebulous con- 
ditions which characterised the enterprises of the different 
statesmen having the direction of Austrian foreign 
politics, and who, with the sole exception of Count 
Aerenthal, always wanted something without in the least 
knowing what it was. 

Hungary, as a matter of fact, had never accepted her 
union with Austria quite sincerely. She had been com- 
pelled to do so as a step toward the entire independence 
she was absolutely determined to obtain one day. She 
smiled, therefore, upon her secular foe, Austria, and 
consented to see the crown of St. Stephen put on the 
head of Francis Joseph. She made a great sacrifice in 
thus humbling herself before the man who had not 
hesitated to send to the scaffold the best among her sons, 

150 



The Magyar Aristocracy 

but she fully meant to reap in the future the benefit of 
that absence of memory which she had affected. Little 
by little Hungary felt her ground, and every day took 
a few steps farther on the road which was to lead her to 
entire liberty. She did not approve — at least, her leaders 
did not — of the policy of aggression pursued in the 
Balkans by the Austrian Government, and she failed to 
see of what advantage to her own personal interests this 
policy could prove to be. 

What Hungary did realise to the utmost was the 
possibilities of advantage to her aims which a European 
war might bring by effecting her separation from the 
Empire of which she was considered to form a part. 
Hungary hated the Habsburgs, and the Magyar aristoc- 
racy despised those Austrian nobles who refused to admit 
it on a footing of equality. By a curious anomaly 
many people who were received by the Emperor and by 
the Empress in their intimacy at Budapest, and treated 
by them there as their personal friends, could not be 
admitted into their presence in Vienna, no matter what 
high functions they might occupy in the hierarchy of 
their own country. Men like Count Karolyi, for in- 
stance — who had been ambassador in different countries, 
among other places at the Court of St. James's — failed 
to secure an invitation for his wife to a Court ball in 
Vienna, though she graced with her beauty all the 
festivities given at the Royal Palace at Buda. This 
was because the mother of the Countess (the Countess 

Erdody) had not quite the requisite eminence of family 

151 



The Austrian Court from Within 

alliances and birth. These subtle distinctions, which 
belonged to another age, incensed the Hungarian aristoc- 
racy, and made it shun the Austrian capital unless 
absolutely necessary ; they, moreover, widened every day 
the gulf which separated the reigning dynasty from its 
Magyar subjects. 

When the war broke out in 1914 the Hungarians did 
not accept it with enthusiasm, in spite of their violent 
dislike for Russia. For one thing. Count Tisza and 
Count Apponyi, and others, thought that the hour for 
such a struggle had not yet arrived, and that it was a 
mistake to seize the pretext of the murder of the Arch- 
duke Francis Ferdinand to open an era of strifes which 
might have the gravest consequences, not only for Austria 
and the Habsburgs, but also for Hungary itself. Their 
country was not ready to take her fate into her own hands 
and proclaim her independence. There was always the 
fear that should the war prove successful for the united 
armies of the Kaiser and of the Emperor Francis Joseph, 
the former, in order to dissimilate his own designs against 
the Austrian Empire, might lend a helping hand to the 
plans of Francis Joseph for subduing Hungary into a 
more acquiescent mood. This would not at all have 
suited the ambitions of those who had carefully watched, 
all through the years which had elapsed since Francis 
Joseph and his lovely consort had been crowned as King 
and Queen of Hungary, for the opportunity of reducing 
Austria to the condition of a vassal of Hungary. These 

men, of whom Count Tisza was one, never wavered one 

152 



Count Berchtold 

single instant in the line of policy which they had decided 
to follow, and it is certain that at the end of the Great 
War Hungary will be the first to urge the incorporation 
of Austria into the vast German confederation, thus 
levelling her to the condition of Bavaria or Wiirtem- 
berg. At the same moment Hungary will proclaim 
herself an independent kingdom, smiling upon the Slavs, 
and furthering the emancipation ideas of the Czechs. 
Whether this kingdom will still be ruled by a Habsburg 
or not remains a question to which I am afraid not many 
Magyars would care to reply to-day. 

Count Berchtold was never a favourite in Budapest. 
For one thing, he had too much Austrian arrogance, and 
though he had married a Hungarian lady — the daughter 
of Count Karolyi — he had not made himself at home 
among his wife's compatriots. He was a stickler for 
etiquette, and the free and easy life led by Hungarian 
aristocrats in Budapest, as well as in their country resi- 
dences, had not appealed to him. 

The Count was the kind of man who likes to ride in a 

well-kept park, but who does not care for a long gallop 

in the country, where there is no one to see how well 

he can manage his horse. He felt more at ease in evening 

dress than in uniform, which tired him. Unfortunately, 

he allowed everybody to guess that such was the case, 

and this harmed his prestige and impaired his authority, 

as well as his influence. Hungarian statesmen, however, 

showed themselves merciful, and gave him plenty of rope 

to hang himself with. For many months after the war 

153 



The Austrian Court from Within 

broke out, Count Berchtold was allowed to do what he 
liked, but when it had been proved beyond dispute that 
he had been the unconscious tool of the German Ambassa- 
dor, Herr von Tschirsky, Count Tisza intervened. Count 
Berchtold resigned, and Count Tisza repaired to Vienna, 
so as to be on the spot when the question of finding a 
successor to this honest but not far-seeing man arose. 
It was his advice and his policy which prevailed, and 
Baron Burian was appointed Foreign Minister and 
Minister of the Imperial Household, two functions which 
had been joined together at the Austrian Court ever since 
the days of Kaunitz and Marie Therese. 

Burian is the instrument of Count Tisza and of the 
party to which the latter belongs. He will work exclu- 
sively for Hungary, and she will always remain with him 
the first consideration in all that he does. In working 
for Hungarian independence, he will also play into the 
hands of Germany, inasmuch as he will persuade Francis 
Joseph — if the Emperor is still alive when peace comes 
to be discussed — that the only chance for Austria is to 
enter resolutely and of her own accord the German con- 
federation, putting her armies, her finances, her interior 
administration and her foreign policy under the super- 
vision of her powerful neighbour. Thus would fall the 
haughty and disdainful Habsburgs from the proud 
position which they have occupied for so many centuries 
without ever filling it worthily, save in one or two excep- 
tions. 

Once Hungary becomes independent, the question will 

154 



Hungarian Ambitions 

necessarily arise as to who will be accepted by the nation 
as its King. Personally, my opinion is that it will prove 
exceedingly difficult for the Hungarians to get rid of the 
present dynasty, the more so that no one will know what 
to do with it after the war. It is, therefore, not unlikely 
that the present heir to the Dual Monarchy, the Arch- 
duke Karl Franz Joseph, will be called upon to assume 
the crown of St. Stephen. But he will have to make 
his choice between being a Roi de parade, following 
the dictates of the parties who will have allowed him to 
ascend the throne, or being dethroned within a short 
time. As he is a docile young man, I have no doubt 
that he will resign himself to his fate with good grace, 
accepting all the privileges but none of the responsibilities 
of a throne. 

The question will then arise as to what Hungary will 
become under the new regime. Will she go on develop- 
ing as a monarchy with which the world will have 
to count in the new grouping of nations? She will 
undoubtedly become an important factor, but whether it 
will be a troublesome one or not, it is difficult to say, 
especially for one who has not been recently in that part 
of the world and who has been deprived of any contact 
with the political men of a country that, whatever hap- 
pens, will never become the friend of Russia, but may 
occasionally prove a dangerous enemy. 

Society in Budapest is very different from that in 

Vienna. It offers far more resources to the foreigner, 

and is not at all so exclusive ; on the contrary, it is most 

155 



The Austrian Court from Within 

hospitable. The Magyars are still, in a certain sense, 
children of the steppes, with all the generous and wild 
instincts which distinguished the semi-nomadic nations 
that once inhabited the vast plains where they dwell 
to-day. 

The Magyar has much in his character that reminds 
one of the Pole : the same brilliance of intellect, the 
same versatility. He possesses, too, I must confess, the 
same indifference to promises made and friendships 
sworn ; the same forgetfulness for everything that does 
not touch him or his feelings. At the same time the 
Magyar is generous, kind in his way, chivalrous occasion- 
ally, though cruel sometimes ; and though untrustworthy, 
yet never deliberately false. His conceptions can be 
immense, and he generally succeeds in carrying them 
through. He is brave, and ever ready to avenge with 
his sword any grievances he fancies he has against his 
neighbour. He is mostly intelligent, but rarely culti- 
vated, though remarkably well-learned men can be met 
with in Hungary. The upper classes are mostly sym- 
pathetic, and make you feel far more at home with 
them than the Austrians, in spite of the reputation for 
bonhomie which the latter enjoy. 

Hungarian women are mostly pretty and fascinating, 
not given to over-strictness in the matter of conduct, but 
always ladyhke ; and, though indifferent to gossip, they 
contrive nevertheless to avoid any subject of scandal. 
One does not find in Hungary that type of woman who, 
through disappointment at not having been appreciated 

156 



Characteristics of Hungarian Society 

by any man as his life's companion, revenges herself 
upon those who have not met the same fate, by tearing 
them to pieces with an hypocritical compassion that does 
more harm than any open hostility would do. One also 
finds but rarely dowagers interested in nothing else but 
the affairs which do not concern them, and ever ready to 
give advice for which no one cares. The maliciousness 
which is the distinctive feature of the upper classes in 
Austria is unknown in Hungary, where both men and 
women are too much occupied by various pursuits to 
waste their time in abusing other people. The desosuvre- 
ment of all the Austrian Serene Highnesses who are 
expected to adorn the balls and the festivities of the 
Hofburg does not affect Budapest society, who, even in 
the cases where it is not given to intellectual pursuits, 
prefers petting its children, its dogs and its horses to the 
pleasure of slandering those who do not deserve it. 

In winter most of the Hungarian aristocracy repairs 
to the capital, where it entertains each other with much 
magnificence and great display of family diamonds, of 
which it possesses plenty. All the receptions given at 
Budapest are most sumptuous. They have also one 
advantage which is never to be met with in Vienna : 
they afford subjects of interesting studies to the foreigner 
whose good fortune brings him to them. He finds himself 
thrown amidst surroundings and people absolutely differ- 
ent from any he has had the opportunity to see before. 
One may or may not like Hungarians ; indeed, it is hardly 

possible that their character will ever fully appeal to other 

157 



The Austrian Court from Within 

nations, who will find some difficulty in understanding 
natures where the greatest generosity is combined with 
an unusual degree of shrewdness, and some untrust- 
worthiness in cases where they think that their own par- 
ticular interests are threatened or endangered. But there 
is one thing which must be conceded to them : with all 
their faults, they are ten thousand times more worthy 
than the Austrians. Their policy, in those cases where 
they have been allowed to follow one, has been far 
superior in regard to morality than that pursued by the 
various Ministers whom Francis Joseph has called to his 
help, and even should one dislike Hungarians, yet it is 
impossible to despise them. 



158 



CHAPTER X 

AMONG THE POLES AND CZECHS 

THE Austrian Empire, as we see it to-day, is an 
agglomeration of different nationalities, each of 
whom would like to play first fiddle to a tune they all, 
without exception, heartily dislike. The German popu- 
lation is not really a very strong element, in spite of all 
its efforts to assert itself. After the Hungarians, whose 
separatist ideas are sure to be realised before long, the 
strong factors in the Monarchy are the Poles and the 
Czechs. The Slavonic elements, which comprise Bosnia, 
Herzegovina, a part of Croatia and of Bukowina, are 
not yet powerful enough to assert themselves ; they 
seek protection where they can find it — in Servia, in 
Russia, or, occasionally, even in Turkey. Thus, while 
disturbing and dangerous to the peace of the world, in 
regard to the Empire they have always been treated as 
negligible quantities. 

With the Poles and with the Czechs it is a very 
different matter. The former are subserviently faithful to 
the Habsburgs, who have toadied to them, caressed them, 
exploited them, and allowed them all the liberty which 
they cared to have, simply in the hope of being able 

through them to influence the inhabitants of the Polish 

159 



The Austrian Court from Within 

provinces forming part of the Russian Empire, and to 
inoculate them with rebeUion. 

Before the war, Gahcia was perhaps the most con- 
tented province in the dominions of Francis Joseph. It 
had practically as much independence as it wanted, was 
administered almost entirely by Polish functionaries, and 
was allowed to speak its own language and to teach it in 
schools. All the large landowners of Polish origin and 
nationality were treated with quite exceptional defer- 
ence, and found the doors of the Hofburg open to 
them, even when they did not possess numerous quarter- 
ings and unimpeachable pedigrees. The Poles, moreover, 
responded to the advances that were made to them, 
and showed considerable patriotism in regard to their 
financial contributions to the maintainence of the Mon- 
archy from which they had obtained recognition of their 
rights. The aristocracy was, for the most part, in- 
telligent, well trained and highly cultured. It could 
boast of brilliant men, lovely women, and unlimited 
wealth; and its castles and residences ranked among the 
finest in Europe. 

A strong anti-Russian agitation was carried on in 
Galicia, and no pains were spared to stir up disaffection 
against the Tsar in Volhynia, Podolia and Ukraine in the 
South of Russia and in the provinces comprising the 
kingdom of Poland. It is well to understand this 
thoroughly in view of the great part which Poland is 
bound to play in the peace deliberations which, some day, 
must be engaged in. The Poles are devoted to Austria, 

160 



Experiences in Poland 

and their protestations of fidelity to Russia, except in a 
few isolated cases, spring from nothing but fear of being 
compromised, and the not unnatural desire to remain 
upon good terms with the w^olf , as well as with the goat, 
which the wolf would like to eat. 

Before the war broke out, and at a time when no one 
was even thinking about its possibility, I happened to 
discuss the situation of Poland with some Poles who, 
since they lived in Petersburg, might be expected to have 
acquired Russian sympathies, and I found that all of them 
were dreaming of the time when it would become possible 
for a new Poland to come to life under the protection of 
the Austrian crown, with an Archduke at its head. They 
already had one candidate for the post of Polish King — 
the Archduke Charles Stephen, who lived at the gates of 
the Polish town of Cracow in a beautiful castle called 
Saybusch, who spoke Polish like a native, who had only 
Polish servants around him. Further to cement his 
position, the Archduke had married two of his daughters 
to young men bearing some of the proudest of Polish 
names, one a Prince Radziwill, and the other a Prince 
Czartoryski, cousin fifty times removed from the head of 
that illustrious house, who was himself an officer in the 
Austrian army. 

It was toward the Archduke Charles Stephen that the 

thoughts of aristocratic Poland were turned ; it was he 

whom the Poles hoped one day to welcome as their 

King. The Habsburgs really have shown abilitv in their 

systematic efforts to win the affections of the Poles, 
L 161 



The Austrian Court from Within 

though, of course, they have been helped by Polish hatred 
for Russia and the House of Romanoff. 

What I have just said does not apply to the Polish 
middle classes, who have not the same reasons for satis- 
faction with Austrian rule as their more fortunate 
brothers. They had the brunt of the burden to bear, but 
did not get fiche de consolation, as one says in French, to 
excessive taxation, in the possibility of being welcomed 
in the select circles of Vienna Society, and of being made 
much of at the Hofburg. They, together with the 
peasantry, saw the unpleasant aspects of the situation, and 
were not so much delighted with the Austrian Govern- 
ment as the latter would have liked them to be. On the 
other hand, this did not make the Poles more inclined 
to look toward Russia as a possible deliverer. On the 
contrary, it induced them to nurse dreams of independ- 
ence, and to long for the day when their rights would 
have to be acknowledged. They would not, however, 
have shown themselves averse to the reconstitution of 
their old kingdom under an Archduke ; and this is where 
the ability of the Austrian Government showed itself in 
quite an extraordinary manner. It contrived to assure 
itself of a preponderance in Galicia, so that even should 
this province happen to be torn asunder from the Em- 
pire and granted independence, it would find itself with 
a member of the Habsburg dynasty at its head, who could 
keep more or less intact the links which bound Galicia to 
the Austrian Empire. 

The Poles realised this position, but it did not disturb 

162 



Prospects of Further Trouble 

their equanimity in the very least. They did not mind 
remaining under the ostensible protection of the Govern- 
ment, whatever it might be, which ruled in Vienna. On 
the contrary, this fact gave them a security for the future. 
What they required was the restoration of an old order 
of things which would allow each Polish citizen the right 
to intrigue against his fellows. For this is what the in- 
dependence of Poland will mean, if it ever becomes a 
reality. It will open for Europe an era of trouble, such 
as we have witnessed in the Balkans since the war of 1877 
called into existence an independent Bulgaria. Poland 
will prove a bone of contention for the whole of the 
European continent. It will remain a permanent danger 
to the security of the world, and cause endless trouble to 
everybody, owing to the character of the people, their 
restlessness, their conviction that each of them has as 
much right to rule his neighbours and his country as the 
other. Their secret and una vowed longing is for the 
restoration of their ancient constitution, which had for 
its first principle the institution of an elective monarchy 
that opened the field for every private ambition. 

An independent kingdom of Poland, such as some 
people dream about, and such as the German Government 
would like to see come into existence under a Sovereign 
belonging to the House of Habsburg, would not have ten 
years' existence. For one thing, there would be found at 
once men belonging to illustrious families, that in the 
past have played a great part in the history of their 

country, who would put forward, either openly, or in 

163 



The Austrian Court from Within 

secret through their supporters, the rights which they 
would imagine entitled them to become invested with the 
kingly dignity. 

Among these notables, Prince Czartoryski, the head 
of that family, would immediately step forward, and 
would find rivals in the Zamoyskis, Potockis, Lubomir- 
skis, and all the other " skis," of whom so many abound 
in Poland ; and one and all would work together, though 
against each other, for the destruction of the new State. 

A lot has been said about Polish patriotism, but the 
only salvation for Poland consists in an autonomy under 
the protection of the Russian Government, which alone is 
powerful enough to protect it against outside aggression 
and against itself. If left alone and abandoned to its own 
instincts, Poland would rush to certain destruction. 

But the Polish element is not the only one existing in 
Galicia. There are the Ruthenians, who have been the 
objects of a persistent Austrian persecution, which, 
especially in the years preceding the outbreak of the war, 
had assumed considerable proportions. The Ruthenians 
mostly belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, and their 
language is that Little Russian which is spoken through- 
out the Ukraine, from Poltava and Chernigov down to 
Kiev and the mouth of the Dnieper. They also have 
nursed since time immemorial the dream of seeing their 
own nationality win its independence. They have 
cherished the warmest sympathies for Russia, and when 
the Russian troops occupied Galicia and a part of 

Bukowina, they made no secret of their hopes of escaping, 

164 



The Ruthenians 

by Russian intervention, from Austrian rule, and of being 
reunited to their countrymen across the frontier. 

Austria will have to reckon with the Ruthenians in 
the final settlement. They will strongly object to being 
merged into a new kingdom of Poland, yet upon this the 
Polish party will certainly insist. It is to be hoped for the 
future peace of Europe that the claims of the Ruthenians 
will be recognised ; otherwise there will be endless trouble, 
the revival of old religious controversies, and the awaken- 
ing of even stronger political hatreds than those which 
already exist between the two rival nationalities, that 
are ever in dispute for supremacy in Galicia. 

The old standing quarrel of the Ruthenian and Polish 
elements that has raged in Galicia so long as history can 
remember has had far more to do with the present war 
than the general public supposes. It has been one of the 
causes of the distrust and antipathy which exists between 
Austria and Russia, and has been further complicated by 
religious questions. 

It must not be forgotten that the Ruthenians were the 

original possessors of Galicia, which the Poles wrested 

from them, together with a considerable portion of 

Ukraine, which, however, they had to return later on to 

Russia. Since their conversion to Christianity they have 

followed the rites of the Greek Church, notwithstanding 

all the attempts made to convert them by Roman Catholic 

clergy; and they have transmitted from father to son 

their hopes of being one day reunited to their brothers 

across the frontier in that " Rousse,^'' as they call it, with 

165 



The Austrian Court from Within 

whom so many remembrances and so many traditions 
bind them. They have always disUked the Poles and 
they hate the Austrians and, in particular, the Catholic 
priests. During the last ten or twelve years a strong 
separatist movement has been gaining strength in Galicia 
among the Ruthenian population, a movement that has 
been undoubtedly encouraged by the various Slav com- 
mittees in Russia, which have displayed considerable 
activity in regard to the propaganda they have carried on 
in favour of Russia. The Austrian Government, of 
course, became aware of it, and in its turn brought 
pressure to bear on the Ruthenians, imprisoned all the 
leaders of the so-called Russian party, and persecuted 
many people who seemed to be favouring the separatist 
movement in Galicia as well as in Bukowina. 

It is very probable that Austria will try, in the event 
of a restoration of the independence of Poland, to insist 
on the Ruthenians being handed over. This ought to be 
opposed by the Allies by all means, because it is quite 
impossible to hope that the Ruthenians will submit to 
this end of all their aspirations and desires, and it is 
certain to start a continual warfare with the Poles. All 
these things would be fraught with many dangers to the 
peace of Europe. Galicia, it must not be forgotten, is 
not Polish, but Russian — at least, its southern part is — 
and to Russia it must return if one wants to avoid con- 
tinual recurrences of political worries and quarrels, con- 
nected with the fight of its Ruthenian population for 

liberty and independence in all matters connected with 

166 



The Czechs 

its language and religion, which bind it so closely to 
Russia. 

After the Hungarian and the Polish questions, the 
one which perhaps has caused the most annoyance to the 
Austrian Government has been that of the Czechs. This 
is such a complicated matter that I doubt whether six 
persons could be found in the whole of Austria to explain 
it in the same way. At the bottom of the whole problem 
lies the separatist movement of the Czech element in 
Bohemia. The Czechs consider themselves as the rightful 
masters of Bohemia, and would like to see it granted the 
autonomy without which, they think, it cannot develop 
its material prosperity as it ought to do. 

The Czechs claim to be considered as a separate king- 
dom, and would wish their King first to be crowned at 
Prague, then to reside a few months of every year in his 
Royal residence of the Hradschin, and afterwards to allow 
the country to be administered only by Czech function- 
aries. What would please them the most would be to 
become an independent kingdom, not governed from 
Vienna, and not obliged to endorse the quarrels of either 
the Habsburg dynasty or of Austria in general. 

Unfortunately for these aspirations, the majority of 

great landowners in Bohemia are Germans, and will not 

hear of the possibility of being ruled by Czechs. They 

are strong unionists, and as their support is indispensable 

to the Government, the latter cannot afford to disregard 

their wishes. It is, therefore, compelled in a certain 

sense to allow them a free hand in the administration of 

167 



The Austrian Court from Within 

the province, and also to permit them to crush, as far as 
it is in their power, the hated and despised Czechs. 

The Czechs, being aware of the fact, return this 
dishke, and thus a most strained situation has arisen, to 
which no solution is to be found — at least for the present. 
The Germans are the stronger, and their number includes 
the members of the most wealthy and powerful families 
of Bohemia, such as the Schwarzenbergs, the Thuns, the 
Clarys, and many more whom it would take too long to 
recall. 

The Choteks, to whom belonged the Duchess of 
Hohenberg, have been credited with Czech sympathies, 
but this has not been proved, and very likely the Duchess 
was the only member of that family who ever indulged 
in any, for the reason that she would have liked to have 
the Czechs on her side when the question arose as to her 
future status in the world. At all events, she affected 
great affection for them, and liked to boast of her Czech 
origin, though she could not speak the Bohemian 
language, and had hardly ever lived in Bohemia before 
her marriage, her parents having almost constantly resided 
abroad. 

The natural antipathy of the German landowners for 
the native population of the country, from which they 
drew the greater portion of their immense wealth, did 
not lead them to forsake it and to live in Austria. On 
the contrary, they all very much preferred Prague to 
Vienna, and the picturesque old city on the Moldau boasts 

of a winter season which is far more brilliant and animated 

168 



Bohemian Antipathies 

than that of the Austrian capital. The palaces of the 
Bohemian aristocracy are splendid, and the receptions 
given there would not disgrace any of the great cities in 
Europe ; but the society which one meets is extremely 
exclusive and confines its circle of acquaintances to its 
own members, a fact which adds to the irritation with 
which it is viewed by the Bohemian or Czech families, 
who, in consequence, feel themselves scorned and belittled. 
Nowhere are the differences of social position felt more 
keenly than in ancient Prague ; nowhere can one observe 
such permanent hatred amongst people who ought to work 
together for one common aim and for the furtherance of 
their mutual interests. 

In Russia great hopes have been built on this state 
of affairs, and the belief exists that the Czechs, being 
Slavs, are in sympathy with Russia, and would not be 
averse to recovering their former independence by means 
of Russian intervention. This idea is essentially false. 
There is absolutely no affection in Bohemia for Russia, 
and the difference of religion alone would render a union 
between the two countries totally impossible, even if the 
Czechs did not fear Russia, in whom, so far from seeing 
a deliverer, they dread to discover an oppressor. 

There are some people who think they are acting 

cleverly by preaching, to the few who consent to listen 

to them, a union of all the Slav elements in Europe under 

the protection of Russia. But no one takes them very 

seriously. The Czechs would feel very sorry indeed to be 

absorbed into Russia, and, from the geographical point 

169 



The Austrian Court from Within 

of view alone, I fail to see how such a thing could ever 
become possible. 

What the Czechs wish to secure is autonomy, if not 
complete independence ; the power to have a parlia- 
ment of their own, and a limitation of the influence of 
the great landowners, who hitherto have controlled all 
local affairs, even those in which they have not been 
directly interested. Failing this, they would prefer, in 
case of annexation to any other country, to be reunited 
with Poland, should Poland ever live again. The fact that 
there are numerous Czech colonists in the South of Russia 
does not prove in the very least that these colonists are 
animated with kindly feelings in regard to Russia. They 
have simply migrated to Podolia or Volhynia because 
these provinces contain a considerable proportion of Poles 
among their inhabitants, with whom Bohemians have 
always been on most friendly terms, and in whom they 
have found a warm and ready support against the exac- 
tions and extortions of the Russian police and officials. 
That lately an active propaganda has been carried on 
among Czechs in favour of Russia is an undeniable fact, 
but this propaganda has not won followers. If the Russian 
Government thinks it can find supporters in Bohemia 
against Austria, it is vastly mistaken. Indeed, it is far 
more probable that the whole province would rise against 
Russian troops, should any ever appear on the banks of 
the Moldau or within the walls of Prague. 

It must not be forgotten that, to the ignorant Czechs, 
Russians are idolaters and schismatics, whom they have 

170 



German Tyranny 

been told by their clergy to abhor ; and the clergy is still 
all-powerful amongst them. 

But putting aside the question of a union with Russia, 
upon which Russians would do wisely not to reckon too 
much, it is an undeniable fact that sooner or later — very 
likely as a consequence of the present war — Bohemia 
will recover its independence, and detach itself from the 
Habsburgs. Together with Hungary, it will achieve 
independence, though it is not likely to accept a member 
of the reigning Austrian dynasty as its King, but will 
either elect a foreign prince or else proclaim itself a 
republic. Francis Joseph has completely destroyed the 
last remnants of popularity which his House had ever 
possessed in Bohemia. By his utter disregard of the 
wishes of the Czechs, by the open manner in which he 
lent himself to the tyranny the German section of the 
population exercised, by the avowed protection which he 
has continually awarded to that portion of the aristocracy 
of the province which was of Austrian origin or in 
thorough sympathy with the methods of the Austrian 
Government, he has given to his Bohemian subjects the 
idea that he would never lend himself to any amelioration 
of the conditions under which they hve. On the contrary, 
they believe he would seek to destroy all their aspira- 
tions toward autonomy. Nowhere has the tyranny of 
Austrian rule been felt more acutely than in Bohemia. 

The separatist tendencies of the Czechs are daily 

increasing in importance and in activity, and soon will not 

consent to be checked or even kept at bay. Already 

171 



The Austrian Court from Within 

many voices are heard to say that the hour has struck 
when an effort must be made to force the Austrian 
Government to recognise the just claims of the Czech 
population. Very soon these voices will become so loud 
and so numerous that Francis Joseph and his Ministers 
will find themselves facing a situation with which it is not 
likely they will ever be able to deal. They will be con- 
fronted with the dilemma of submitting to the claims of 
the province of Bohemia, whose bid for freedom other 
parts of the Austrian Empire would immediately emulate, 
or of attempting once more to crush with its iron hand 
the aspirations of a people who knows its wants and how 
to get them. 

Unfortunately, the latter decision is most probably the 
one they will take, and it will begin an era of civil wars 
that will end with the total disintegration of the ancient 
realm of the Habsburgs. 



172 



CHAPTER XI 

THE LAST LOVE AFFAIR OF THE HABSBURGS 

1HAVE already mentioned the Archduke Frederick, 
and said that owing to his enormous fortune he 
occupies a considerable position in the family circle of 
the Habsburgs. His marriage, too, was a romantic one, 
but it was perfectly "respectable," and, in spite of the 
difficulties that it occasioned at first, ended like a fairy 
tale, by the happiness of the people engaged in it. 

The Princess Isabella of Croy, who won the affections 
of the youthful Archduke, as he was at the time, belonged 
to one of the proudest half German and half Belgian 
families who have been recognised as capable of matching 
with Royalty and of giving their daughters to Sovereigns, 
without the latter committing a breach of the regulations 
which rule the marriages of reigning houses. She was, 
moreover, a clever and enterprising lady, who determined 
from the very day that she w^as accepted as an Arch- 
duchess to become a power in the family that had received 
her, though not with open arms, at least with that cold 
courtesy which was all she had expected. Isabella, how- 
ever, in no way applied herself to propitiate her nearest 
relatives; she set out to make a personal position for 
herself, not only among the employers and tenants on 

173 



The Austrian Court from Within 

her husband's immense estates, but especially in Vienna, 
where Society had viewed her arrival with a certain 
apprehension. Still, she soon made herself thoroughly at 
home, far more than in Hungary, where lived at that 
time her own eldest sister, the Princess Eugenie (or Nini, 
as she was familiarly called in Budapest) Esterhazy, the 
wife of the head of that illustrious family. Princess Nini 
had made herself so thoroughly and so immensely popular 
among the Hungarians that her sister's personality, Arch- 
duchess though she was, found itself overlooked in conse- 
quence. 

Now this was the last thing which Isabella could for- 
give, and consequently she did not take kindly to the 
Hungarians, and avoided frequent visits to Budapest, in 
spite of the fact that she lived for a few years at Pres- 
bourg, where the Archduke had a military command. 
The early years of the couple's married life were spent 
at Presbourg, until the death of Archduke Albert put his 
nephew in possession of all his wealth, and caused him 
to transfer his residence to the palace in Vienna which, 
as well as the ancestral castle, now claimed him as its 
master. 

But as years went on, and especially after the death 

of the Princess Esterhazy, who died in the flower of her 

youth, the Archduchess Isabella forgave the Hungarians. 

She struck up a great friendship with the Archduchess 

Marie Josepha, the mother of the future heir to the 

throne, as well as with the Emperor's daughter, Marie 

Valerie, and these three ladies formed themselves into a 

174 



The Archduchess Isabella 

kind of league against the Duchess of Hohenberg, the 
morganatic wife of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. 
They secured for themselves the good graces of the 
Emperor, who, when influenced by someone other than 
Frau Schratt, used to listen to his daughter. She, in her 
turn, often played the game of her two cousins, especially 
of Isabella, who, clever, brilliant, and of an enterprising 
turn of mind, soon became a personage of decided influ- 
ence in the Imperial Family. 

A number of children were born to the Archduchess 
Isabella. Six daughters came in rapid succession, to the 
despair of their parents. They yearned, though, for a 
son, who arrived after everyone had ceased hoping for his 
advent. When he was born, his eldest sister was already 
eighteen years of age. The question of her marriage 
had arisen more than once, and considerably preoccupied 
her mother. The Archduchess Isabella had been very 
ambitious in regard to her girls, and had nursed the 
dream of seeing one of them wed the Archduke Francis 
Ferdinand, her cousin, and the other the young King of 
Spain. Both these plans, about which she had plotted and 
schemed for years, fell through because, in spite of a stay 
of several weeks at Madrid as the guests of the Dowager 
Queen of Spain, a sister of the Archduke Frederick, 
the latter's daughter, Marie Christine, failed to impress 
Alphonso XIII., who already had in view the English 
marriage he was to contract later. 

The young Archduchess ended by making a love 

marriage with the Hereditary Prince of Salm Salm, the 

175 



The Austrian Court from Within 

future head of one of the oldest and most illustrious 
families of which Germany can boast, and the heir to 
considerable riches. Her sister Marie Anne — whom her 
mother had wanted to wed the heir to the Austrian crown, 
when the Countess Sophy Chotek had carried him away, 
as it were, under her very eyes — became the wife of 
Prince Elie of Parma. Another of the young Arch- 
duchesses, Marie Henrietta, gave her hand to the present 
Austrian Ambassador in Berlin, Prince Godfrey of 
Hohenlohe Schillingsfiirst, and now merely lives the life 
of a private lady of high rank. 

It was another sister of these young Princesses — called 
Isabella, after their mother — who was by a strange freak 
of destiny to become the heroine of one of those romances 
for which the House of Habsburg has so often been 
famous, a romance that nearly ended the other day by 
making her renounce all the privileges of her birth to 
become the wife of a simple doctor, with whom she had 
fallen in love whilst nursing in a Red Cross hospital to 
which she was attached under the name of Sister Irmgard. 

The existence of this Archduchess had indeed been an 
eventful one. She was wedded at the age of twenty-four 
to Prince George of Bavaria, whose mother, the Arch- 
duchess Gisela, was the eldest daughter of the Emperor 
Francis Joseph, whilst by his father. Prince Leopold, he 
was the grandson of the late Prince Regent of Bavaria. 
This young man had always had a queer reputation, and 
not many mothers would have cared to give him their 
girls; but, speaking from the worldly point of view, he 

176 



Princess Isabella of Croy 

was one of the best matches in Europe : rich, young, 
handsome, and highly connected. He seemed to have 
been genuinely in love w^ith his fiancee, who, being kept 
very strictly at home, was perhaps not so very sorry to 
escape the hard rule of her mother. The Archduchess 
Gisela, on her side, was delighted to see her son settle at 
last, after the rather adventurous life which he had led, 
and which had occasioned her considerable apprehensions. 

Prince George had always been a favourite with his 
grandfather, Francis Joseph, who, delighted to find that 
he had become engaged to one of his cousins, gave 
magnificent wedding presents to the young couple and, 
moreover, settled a handsome sum of money upon them. 

By command of the Emperor Francis Joseph, the 
wedding took place at Schonbrunn, being solemnised 
with that exceeding pomp which the Austrian Court 
alone knows how to display. The bride appeared quite 
lovely under the priceless lace veil that had formerly 
belonged to the Empress Elisabeth, and which the 
latter 's daughter Gisela had given that same morning to 
her son's future wife. After a wedding breakfast at 
which the Emperor himself proposed the health of the 
newly married pair, they started for the Castle of Laxen- 
burg, which had been put by the Sovereign at their 
disposal for the honeymoon. 

What took place there is difficult to know or relate, 

and, after all, has nothing to do with the present tale. 

But at about four o'clock in the morning a dishevelled 

female figure knocked at the gates of the Vienna palace 
M 177 



The Austrian Court from Within 

of the Archduke Frederick, and insisted on being ad- 
mitted, making herself known as the Archduchess 
Isabella, the bride of a few hours before. To her father 
and mother, who hastened to her, she would say nothing, 
but merely sobbed in an uncontrollable attack of distress, 
and implored them to take her back under their roof, and 
never to allow her to return to a husband with whom 
she declared no human persuasion could or would ever 
induce her to live, even for one single hour. 

The consternation caused by this catastrophe was 
indescribable. Of course the Emperor had to be 
acquainted with it, and the old Sovereign's distress, for 
once, was very genuine. He tried to preach resignation 
to his niece, and, sending for his grandson, gave him a 
piece of his mind, telling him that it was his duty to see 
if he could not persuade the Princess to forgive the insults 
which he had put upon her, and resume her life with 
him. But all these efforts, added to those of the Arch- 
duchess Isabella — who did not care in the least to have 
her daughter returned to her like a bad penny — and of 
the Archduchesses Gisela and Marie Valerie, who came 
to lend her a helping hand, proved absolutely unavailing. 
The young bride refused either to be comforted or to 
listen to the exhortations which were poured on her from 
all sides, and she declared that if her parents persisted in 
their refusal to take her back, she would enter a convent. 

It is difficult to say what would have happened had 

not the father confessor of the family interfered. He 

tried to persuade the young girl that it was her duty to 

178 



A Startling Episode 

try at least to convert her husband to better principles ; 
at all events, she ought to give him another chance before 
refusing definitely to remain with him. Isabella yielded, 
after having stipulated that she was to be given three 
months of liberty before resuming the existence which 
was so repugnant to her, after which she promised she 
would make an attempt to overcome the disgust and 
the loathing with which her husband of a few hours 
inspired her. 

She spent the time of probation at a shooting-box of 
her father's in the Tyrol, where she led a quiet and free 
existence, and honestly tried to persuade herself to accept 
with resignation the sad fate which had befallen her, 
and to which she knew she could never reconcile herself 
entirely. When the delay for which she had pleaded had 
come to an end, her mother-in-law, the Archduchess 
Gisela, came to fetch her and brought her to Munich, 
showing her great kindness and sympathy. The whole 
Bavarian Royal Family awaited her, and showered upon 
her much attention and affection. With a breaking 
heart, she resigned herself to begin an existence which 
she loathed even before she knew what it would be. 

The experiment did not last long. After one short 

fortnight the Archduchess Isabella left her palace by a 

back door one morning, before day had broken, and was 

driven in a cab to the railway station. She had only taken 

one small bag with her, and was absolutely unattended, 

even by a maid. The same night saw her arrive at Vienna, 

where she at once sought the one person in the Imperial 

179 



The Austrian Court from Within 

Family who had enough authority to protect her effec- 
tually, if she wished to do so — the Archduchess Marie 
Therese, her aunt. The young Archduchess related to 
her all the details concerning her conjugal life, which she 
had never dared to divulge to anyone before, imploring 
her at the same time to save her from a fate which she 
considered as infinitely worse than death itself. 

Marie Therese was a good woman. She comforted 
her niece, consoled her, and assured her that no one would 
molest her so long as she remained under her roof. The 
next day she went to see the Emperor, and, in her turn, 
unfolded to him the sad story of the Princess Isabella's 
misfortunes. 

Hard and callous as Francis Joseph generally showed 

himself in such cases, he had nevertheless to acknowledge 

that his beloved grandson had acted quite inexcusably 

toward his young wife ; and when he heard his stern and 

rigid sister-in-law, whose Catholic principles stood so 

high, assure him that the only thing which he could do 

was to use his influence in Rome to get the marriage 

annulled, he could no longer continue the opposition 

which he had started at first. The Court of Bavaria was 

communicated with, and the late Regent, Prince Luitpold 

— who was still alive at the time — gave his consent to a 

procedure of divorce being started simultaneously at the 

Vatican and before the civil courts of Bavaria. This 

ended with the annulment of the union, and the young 

Archduchess was freed from the fetters that had bound 

her to a man who had never deserved her. 

180 



Days of Unhappiness 

But this did not mean that she was allowed to live her 
own life, according to her personal wishes or desires. 
For one thing, the Archduchess Frederick, her mother, 
was not at all pleased to have back under her roof a 
daughter of whose conduct she had never approved, and 
who had disappointed all the hopes her brilliant marriage 
had raised. The Imperial lady understood very well that 
after such a scandal it would become extremely difficult 
to find another husband for the girl. She did not approve 
of female emancipation, and thought that the young 
Princess would have done better to content herself with 
a separation which would not have entirely torn asunder 
the links that had existed between her and her husband, 
and would have allowed her to retain the status of a 
member of the Bavarian Royal Family. It is true this 
would have shattered her life and have condemned her 
to a lonely and cheerless existence, but the haughty 
descendant of the Dukes of Croy did not care for this 
small matter, nor for the feelings of her own child. She 
had become a true Habsburg in that respect, which per- 
haps accounted for the great affection with which she was 
viewed by the head of that House, the Emperor Francis 
Joseph. 

The young Archduchess Isabella soon found out that 

her life at home was anything but a pleasant one. On 

the other hand, she did not care to live always with her 

aunts and cousins, where she had the feeling that she was 

staying on sufferance. She was in a false position and 

felt it acutely — neither a maiden, nor a wife, nor a 

18i 



The Austrian Court from Within 

widow; a sort of lost being whom no one wanted, and 
for whom no one really cared; alone with her wasted 
affections and her half -broken heart, and deprived even 
of the possibility of seeking outside amusements that 
might have made her forget, if only for a short time, the 
sad experience which had blighted her young life. 

At last, tired out by the inaction and futility of her 
existence, she took a great resolution, and declared to her 
parents that she wanted to enter a sisterhood of nurses 
where she could use her faculties in tending the sick 
and afflicted. No one tried to prevent her. Her father, 
who felt in a certain sense guilty before her, did not 
oppose her determination, hoping that she would find 
some comfort in a new life where nothing could remind 
her of the past; and her mother was secretly delighted 
at being relieved of the responsibility of looking after a 
child with whom she no longer felt in sympathy, and 
whose presence at her side was nothing but a burden 
to her. The Archduchess parted from her relatives 
once again, but more happily than she had done on 
that bleak February day when her husband had carried 
her away to his own home after the ceremony of their 
wedding at Schonbrunn. She entered almost joyfully the 
hospital of the Rudolph community in Vienna, where 
she went through the regular course of studies required 
from every nursing sister in that establishment. She was 
known there, at her own request, only by the name of 
Sister Irmgard. 

For something like a year she worked in the hospital, 

182 



A Battlefield Romance 

and made herself generally beloved by the patients as 
well as by the authorities in charge. And when the war 
broke out she was one of the first who volunteered to go 
to the front to attend the victims. 

It was during this trying time that the beautiful 
character of the young Archduchess came out in its full 
splendour. She followed the armies commanded by her 
father, the Archduke Frederick, and day and night 
worked, with a detachment of the Austrian Red Cross 
in a motor field ambulance, for the relief of the sick and 
wounded, denying herself any of the comforts to which 
she might have pretended, and never resting in her 
arduous duties. The whole army knew her and loved 
her, and wondered at the courage which led her to expose 
herself to all kinds of dangers, going so far as to fetch 
wounded men from the very line of the enemy's fire. 
She did not spare herself; she was always thinking 
about others, and many soldiers spoke and thought about 
her as a saint sent down from heaven to attend to their 
wants ; to help them in their sufferings or to be with 
them in the solemn hour of their passage into another 
life. 

One evening, after an unusually hard-working day, 
the Archduchess, on entering a field hospital to attend 
to some of her patients, was surprised to find a new face 
among the doctors assembled there. Upon inquiring 
who it was, she was told that it was the famous Vienna 
surgeon. Professor Paul Albrecht, one of the greatest 
celebrities in Germany. She went up to him and asked 

183 



The Austrian Court from Within 

him to examine more particularly a few of her patients 
in whom she felt especially interested. This first con- 
versation led to many others, and at last the grave and 
studious man, whose busy life had not given him many 
opportunities to talk with ladies on other subjects than 
their personal illnesses and physical miseries, became more 
than interested in the pale, slight woman who was always 
ready to come forward whenever wanted, who never for a 
moment forgot the work of mercy in which she was 
engaged, and who submitted so joyfully to hardships 
and privations of every kind. They became friends, and 
often of an evening, when they both could enjoy a few 
moments' rest, they sat side by side talking about all the 
sad spectacles which were continually meeting their 
sight, and from which there was no escape wherever they 
turned. 

The seriousness, intelligence and spirit of self-sacrifice 
of the young Archduchess deeply impressed the clever 
doctor, who had never expected to find such earnestness 
in a woman brought up as she had been amidst all the 
refinements of a luxury that did not leave her a single 
wish unfulfilled. He was virtually a Socialist in his 
opinions ; he believed that every man and woman in the 
world ought first to think of their duties toward their 
neighbours. 

Professor Albrecht had, indeed, nursed against the 
Habsburgs that kind of resentment with which they were 
viewed all over Austria, and from the height of the 

science of which he was one of the lights he despised the 

184 



An Archduchess in Love 

useless kind of existence which they led, and which had 
never been known to be of real help to any of the 
thousands of people whose burdens they might so easily 
have lightened had they only thought about it. The 
Archduchess Isabella, with her sweet simplicity, was to 
him a revelation of womanly grace and loveliness, and it 
was not long before their friendship ripened into some- 
thing warmer that was not yet love, but very near to it. 

The Princess also was struck by the personality of 
the professor, and the difference in their ages did not 
frighten her, but seemed, on the contrary, to draw her 
nearer to him. They toiled together at the common task 
which they had undertaken with the same courage and 
the same energy, and at last the day came when the 
daughter of the Habsburgs asked herself whether she 
would not feel happier with the already grey-haired man, 
whose moral worth she had learned to appreciate, than 
amidst all the splendours of her parents' palace at 
Vienna, or the magnificence of the Hofburg. She soon 
decided the question for herself, and when she had 
made up her mind she did not hesitate in allowing the 
professor to guess that such was the case, and that should 
he care to ask her for the gift of her heart she would not 
hesitate to grant it to him. 

They became privately engaged soon after, but the 
great difficulty was how to acquaint the family of the 
Archduchess of her decision to give up all the privileges 
and advantages of her exalted rank, as well as her position 

as a member of the Imperial House, and marry a man 

185 



The Austrian Court from Within 

who had nothing beyond his spotless reputation and the 
great name which he had made for himself in the world 
of science and chirurgery to recommend him; he had 
none of those qualifications of birth which were considered 
indispensable to the husbands of Royal Princesses. It 
was true that one of the cousins of the Archduchess, the 
eldest daughter of the Archduke Charles Stephen, had 
wedded a simple naval ojSicer called Herr von Kloss, but 
he belonged at least to the Austrian nobility, and could 
boast of a *' von " to his name. 

The case was absolutely different here, because Pro- 
fessor Albrecht was essentially a bourgeois and a self- 
made man. This alone was more than sufficient to set 
loose all the indignation and fury of the Imperial Family. 
The Archduchess Isabella, in particular, was much 
enraged, and even talked of the necessity of locking up 
in a madhouse a daughter so far capable of forgetting 
herself. The only person who showed some kindness to 
the unfortunate girl was her father, the Archduke 
Frederick, who during all the long months when he had 
had the opportunity to watch his daughter fulfilling the 
mission of mercy which she had undertaken, and doing it 
without flinching and with a courage such as is but 
seldom seen in a woman, had grown to love as well as to 
respect her, and to regret the wreck of her life that had 
been the consequence of parental ambition and careless- 
ness. He was not an intelligent man, and he had inherited 
all the selfishness of the Habsburgs, but something in his 

heart had been touched by the child's noble character, 

186 



Francis Joseph withholds Consent 

and he decided to try to allow her to seek her happiness 
where she thought that she could find it, and he begged 
the Emperor to grant his consent to the Archduchess's 
engagement. 

But he had not reckoned with Francis Joseph's 
cruelty and mercilessness. The Sovereign merely treated 
his nephew as a madman, and declared that if the Arch- 
duchess Isabella did not at once give up the idea of thus 
disgracing herself, he would do the same thing with her 
as he had done with the unfortunate Crown Princess of 
Saxony : forbid her to use her title or her coat of arms, 
and expel her from the bosom of her family. No appeal 
would touch him, and the fact that his niece's life was 
being thus sacrificed for the second time to foolish ideas 
of pride and of haughtiness did not seem to trouble him 
in the very least. It was with difficulty that he could 
be persuaded to allow the Archduchess to go on with 
her work in the field hospital ; he wanted to have her 
locked up in one of her father's castles until, as he 
expressed it, she "comes to her senses again." 

The Archduke Frederick had to return to his daughter 
with the bad news that his efforts had proved useless. She 
said nothing — perhaps because she felt that, in the 
circumstances in which she found herself placed, it would 
be almost akin to desertion to leave the post of danger 
at which she stood. Both she and the professor resigned 
themselves to the inevitable, but one may hope that after 
the war is over the young Princess will succeed in obtain- 
ing permission to marry. 

187 



CHAPTER XII 

THE AUSTRIAN CLERGY 

A GREAT deal has been written concerning the 
influence of the clergy in Austria. Some people 
afl&rm that no important political decision is taken by 
the Government without being previously referred to 
Rome and its functionaries. I think that this assertion 
is probably exaggerated, but that the Vatican is still a 
great power at the Hofburg is an undeniable fact, though 
it may not be quite so strong at the Ball Platz. 

The bigotry of the Emperor Francis Joseph makes 
him turn toward his Mother Church in all those difficul- 
ties with which he finds himself confronted but fails 
to understand or to appreciate at their proper worth. 
Private letters occasionally pass betv een him and the 
Pope, and on one memorable occasion — that of the Con- 
clave which followed upon the death of Leo XIII. — the 
Austrian Government, acting on instructions which it 
had received from a source the origin of which it is easy 
to guess, interfered in the deliberations of that assembly. 
It made use of the old right of veto which Austria had 
possessed from time immemorial, but which had fallen 
into abeyance for more than two hundred years, and 

objected to the election to the pontifical throne of 

188 



Austria and Cardinal Rampolla 

Cardinal Rampolla, who was suspected of Italian Irreden- 
tist as well as of strong French sympathies. 

It is not generally known that it was the Emperor 
Francis Joseph who took the initiative in that grave step. 
The Government had not the courage to do so, as it 
seemed to savour too much of the mediaeval ages, and 
also tended to create a precedent of unusual gravity that 
might have most serious consequences in the matter of 
the relations of the Austrian State with the Roman 
Curia. As a matter of fact, the only result which it had, 
apart from the failure of Rampolla 's candidature, was the 
abrogation by the Vatican of the right of veto on the part 
of foreign Powers belonging to the Catholic community. 

But to return to the conduct of the Emperor in that 
memorable incident. When he had made up his mind — 
or, as seems more likely, when others had made it up for 
him — that the elevation to the tiara of the former Secre- 
tary of State of Leo XIII. would prove injurious to 
Austrian interests (though why he would have found it 
rather difficult to explain), he instantly acted on this 
conviction with the energy generally displayed by weak 
characters if they once muster enough resolution to assert 
themselves. He invited the Cardinal Archbishop of 
Vienna to the Hofburg in order to entrust him with the 
painful mission of interfering, in the Emperor's name, 
with the deliberations of the Conclave about to open. 

The Prelate, however, absolutely refused to lend him- 
self to such an intrigue, and declared that his personal 

relations with Cardinal Rampolla rendered it quite impos- 

189 



The Austrian Court from Within 

sible for him to accept the mission. Upon this, Francis 
Joseph summoned the Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal 
Puzyna, who agreed with a certain pleasure to the 
painful and delicate task imposed upon him, because 
RampoUa had energetically opposed the pro-Austrian 
policy that a certain portion of the Galician clergy, with 
the Archbishop of Cracow at its head, had long been 
systematically pursuing. 

The result of this intervention of Francis Joseph is 
known to the world. Its consequences will only be 
revealed later on, when the history of the last twenty-five 
years comes to be written in more detail than it is possible 
to do at present. We stand, to-day, too near to certain 
facts to be able to discuss them with impartiality. It is 
certainly not my intention to do so in this book, and I 
only mentioned the incident connected with the election of 
the late Pope Pius X. — which would never have taken 
place had it not been for the consternation into which the 
Austrian veto threw the members of the Sacred College 
— to confirm the general impression which prevails among 
enlightened minds as to the close attention with which 
everything that takes place at the Vatican is followed in 
Vienna, and of the great importance that is attached at 
the Ball Platz to the part that the clergy can play, and 
indeed does play, in the politics of Austria. 

The Emperor himself is a most devout man. I fancy 
that he imagines he is pious, too ; but that is another 
matter. Piety requires something more than the strict 
observance of the routine of religion. He likes to 

190 



Baron Wuthenau's Affairs 

speak of the trials and sorrows Providence has inflicted 
upon him, and of which, by the way, he feels inordi- 
nately proud. He is as vain of the misfortunes which 
have assailed him as a pretty woman would be of her 
lovely features. 

The Emperor goes daily to church, and his devotion 
is imitated by the whole of the Austrian aristocracy with 
but few exceptions. In the generality of cases religion 
is either an affectation or a question of good breeding. 
At the same time it must be acknowledged that one 
meets, especially among the women, very fine types of 
religious convictions and of sincere as well as humble 
faith. 

Certain religious usages have been laid down, no one 

knows by whom, but they are as immutable as the laws 

of olden times, which did not admit of any compromise. 

For instance, a mixed marriage is scarcely tolerated, and 

then only on the condition that its issue must be baptised 

into the Roman Catholic faith without any regard to 

sex. When the sister of the late Duchess of Hohenberg, 

the Countess Chotek — who had not sixpence in the world 

to bless herself with — was asked in marriage by the 

very rich Baron Wuthenau, a terrible storm shook the 

placidity of all her relatives, as the fiance happened to be 

a Protestant; and it is related that her confessor was 

even asked to remonstrate with her on the very dangerous 

step she contemplated taking before, at last, she was 

allowed to accept him. 

The clergy, though apparently not mixing itself in 

191 



The Austrian Court from Within 

the family life of the faithful, contrives nevertheless to 
influence it a good deal. Domestic chaplains, especially 
in country houses, are often to be met, and they are 
treated with the utmost consideration. Meat never 
appears at table on Fridays, and it would be considered 
a most heinous crime to miss attending Mass on Sundays. 
Indeed, in some households it is expected that all its 
members should attend Mass every morning. 

Religious newspapers are most popular, while the 
Vienna Fremdenhlatt — which is the only really serious 
and worth-reading daily paper in Austria — is considered 
as a most dangerous publication by the very pious 
dowagers of the aristocracy, and only smuggled in occa- 
sionally by the younger members of the family. Conver- 
sations are often directed toward not so much religious, 
as superstitious subjects, and the Pope is looked upon 
in the light of a divinity, something akin to the Mikado 
of Japan before the reforms which have civilised that 
country. 

An amusing instance may be related in this connec- 
tion. There was a young girl in Viennese society who, 
though renowned for her extraordinary beauty, was also 
known for her absolute lack of conversational and per- 
ceptive faculties. One day a young man of a rather 
frivolous disposition made a bet with some of his friends 
that he would induce her to speak continuously the first 
time he should happen to meet her. The bet was for a 
considerable sum, and was taken by several people. They 

all assembled a few days later at a ball which was being 

192 



A Bet and Its Sequel 

given, and followed with immense interest the manoeuvres 
of their comrade. What was their surprise to see that 
during the whole of a quadrille the young Princess 

X y talked with the greatest liveliness to her partner, 

and indeed became quite excited during her conversation 
with him, which continued long after the dance had come 
to an end. When at last he left her, he was at once 
surrounded by his friends, who asked him to explain how 
he had contrived to animate that statue. " You want to 
know what I have done?" was the reply. "It was a 
simple matter after all. I began telling her all kinds of 
horrible stories concerning the Pope. She will never look 
at me again, but in the meanwhile she talked for once, 
and probably more than she had ever done in her life 
before or ever will do after." One may imagine the 
bursts of laughter which greeted this frank avowal on 
the part of the young man. 

This anecdote, which is quite true, will give the reader 
an idea of the kind of education which the daughters of 
Austria's most aristocratic houses receive. Such a train- 
ing is bound to exercise its influence not only on the 
daily existence of that class of people, but also on their 
political opinions, which in a good many cases are but 
reflections of those professed by the priests in whose 
keeping is their conscience. I hope this will not be 
looked upon in the light of any disrespect on my part 
for the Catholic clergy in general, where I am the first 
one to say that one finds admirable examples of all the 
virtues ; but as a general rule priests, because they have 
N 193 



The Austrian Court from Within 

entered into Holy Orders, have not given up on that 
account any of their national qualities or defects. 

The Austrian priest, like most of his compatriots, is 
a being with very little knowledge beyond that which is 
indispensable in his profession, very narrow ideas, and a 
limited amount of that higher education which is so im- 
portant to acquire for all those who aspire to leave their 
mark in the world. I am, of course, speaking of the 
parish clergy, which has sole charge of the morals and 
training of the masses. Above it are to be met the 
Jesuits and other congregations, which abound all over 
the Austrian Empire. These control the higher classes, 
and have a real importance in Court circles. Between 
these two classes of clergy, by the way, exists a decided 
animosity, which nevertheless does not outstep the limits 
of politeness. 

The Austrian is far too mild in character ever to 
become violent, even when his feelings are aroused. 
Consequently, the intervention of the priest in his private 
life, even when it is not welcomed, is generally accepted, 
and the latter knows very well how to make use of this 
circumstance to ingratiate himself. 

It is a curious thing, but with the exception of the 

Polish Church, nearly the whole of the Austrian clergy 

is German in sympathies. The Polish clergy are so very 

anti-Russian that the feeling makes Austrians of them, 

in the sense that they always keep preaching to their 

disciples that the greatest misfortune which could befall 

them would be if Russia installed itself in Galicia. The 

194 



The Polish Priesthood 

fear of such a possibility makes the Poles support with 
all their might the Austrian Government, even when the 
latter does things which do not appeal to their opinions 
or feelings. 

In Poland the influence of the priest is a formidable 
one, if only on account of the fact that the peasants and 
artisans are entirely dependent on him for their political 
convictions, and always read}^ to transfer their allegiance 
to those whom he recommends them to obey. But 
outside Poland and Bohemia, where the Czech and the 
German elements are always at war with each other, the 
sympathies of the clergy are for Germany, in which it 
sees the best friend and ally that Austria ever had in the 
past or will have in the future ; this notwithstanding the 
shadows of Sadowa and of so many other battles, in which 
the Prussian shot down his Austrian adversary. 

Whether this is the result of conviction or that of 
clever intrigue it is difficult to say. It is sufficient that 
the fact exists, and as such it deserves particular atten- 
tion on the part of the spectator desirous of ascertaining 
the details of the working of the machine which sets into 
motion the wheels of the Austrian Monarchy. 

In the present war the part played by the clergy has 

been quite stupendous. For one thing, it was its task to 

explain to the people the necessity of taking up cheerfully 

its portion of the general burden, and of standing by 

the Government without flinching throughout the crisis. 

The murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was 

represented as having been the crime of the anti-Catholic 

195 



The Austrian Court from Within 

party in Servia, guided by Russia, who was aspiring to 
establish itself in the Balkan Peninsula. This was to the 
detriment of Austria and of the Roman Catholic Church, 
which had begun to take a strong hold in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, thanks to the zeal of the Austrian officials, 
who, following the inspiration of certain members of the 
Society of Jesus and other religious orders, were doing 
their best to bring pressure to bear upon the Greek 
schismatics, so as to oblige them either to emigrate or 
else to enter the Roman communion. The anti-Catholics 
were also strong in Bulgaria, where Ferdinand of Coburg 
was intriguing for all he was worth m order to estab- 
lish an independent Bulgarian Church united with Rome, 
who would joyfully consent to accept it among its flocks 
in the same manner that it had accepted the Armenians 
and the Greek followers of the Latin form of their rites. 
This scheme, which had been begotten out of the active 
brain of the Prince's mother, the famous Princess 
Clementine of Coburg, very nearly succeeded, and might 
have done so altogether had not the war stopped its 
progress. 

To return to the conduct of the Catholic clergy when 
the war broke out, it must be noticed that whilst the 
Government did not use pressure in order to induce the 
clergy to support the Throne, by the influence which it 
wielded over the masses, the clergy, on the contrary, of 
its own accord, used all its power to direct the nation to 
follow the lead of the Government. During the few 

anxious days that followed upon the handing of the 

196 



The Call to Arms 

famous ultimatum of Count Berchtold to the Servian 
Government, when serious people were hoping against 
hope that the terrible catastrophe of a European war 
might still be avoided by some kind of miracle, the parish 
priests all over the country were assiduously explaining 
to their parishioners that the time had come when the 
intrigues of the enemies of the true faith were about to 
be punished. God Himself, they said, required them to 
come forward to defend the threatened cause of justice 
and of civilisation. What could poor, ignorant people, 
who had heard nothing else beyond this call to arms 
coming from the mouth of the most respected authority 
they knew, do but believe all this accumulation of un- 
truth and false representations? Before even war had 
been declared the whole population of Austria knew 
that it was about to begin, and rejoiced in the fact — 
after the fashion of the ancient martyrs who rejoiced at 
being put to death for their faith. 

It must be acknowledged that nothing could have 
been cleverer than this demoralisation of a whole nation. 
Without it, it would have been next to impossible to 
persuade the Austrian soldiers to fight with anything 
like enthusiasm and courage. They are not brave, and 
initiative on the battlefield is unknown to them. They 
would much prefer staying at home than winning laurels 
of which they fail to see the use. Their mild disposition 
and kind nature abhors blood, and the sight of any suffer- 
ing unmans them. Though they can be cruel on occasion, 

it is always in a spasmodic manner, which does not bear 

197 



The Austrian Court from Within 

the slightest resemblance to the cold and studied ferocity 
of their allies the Germans. Left alone, those good 
Austrians would probably never have thought about 
avenging the pistol-shot which killed the Archduke and 
his wife. 

It required a strong effort on the part of those who 
wanted them to come forward in the bellicose attitude 
which was not theirs by nature, and this achievement it 
is to be doubted whether anyone outside of the clergy 
could have been successful in performing. The Silesian 
and Tyrolean peasants, too ignorant to seek anything 
outside the official reasons given for the great infamy 
their simple minds were far too untrained to suspect, 
marched forth, singing their national hymns, to be 
slaughtered in masses in the Carpathian passes and the 
Galician and Polish plains. In the rapidity with which the 
whole population of the Austrian Monarchy responded 
to the appeal of its Government, the work of the clergy 
could be traced at every step. 

So much for the masses. But among the upper 
classes also an active propaganda for the war was made 
by ecclesiastics, whether belonging to the secular or to 
the regular branch of the clergy. The noble families 
who clustered round the Throne, and who up to then 
had but rarely been called upon to make any real sacrifices 
for a Monarchy of which they proclaimed themselves the 
warmest supporters, were catechised and encouraged and 
persuaded that at last the time had come for them to 
assert themselves and to come forward. By such con- 

198 



Clerical Aspirations 

duct, they were told, they would be able, after the war 
had been brought to a successful issue, to persuade, 
and if necessary to claim from the Sovereign the acknow- 
ledgment of their past services, and also prominent places 
in the administration of the State, which lately had not 
been awarded to them quite so generously as had been 
the case at the beginning of the reign of Francis Joseph. 
To tell the truth, what the clergy aimed at was the 
establishment of its own influence in a far more solid way 
than before. It wanted, and indeed had all along wanted, 
to return to feudal customs, which recognised but two 
powers in the land : that of the Church and of the aris- 
tocracy. It refused to acknowledge the right of existence 
to the middle classes, and still less that of having any part 
in the conduct of State affairs. It wished the re-establish- 
ment of the supremacy of its Order, working hand in 
hand with the nobility it had always flattered, and had 
carefully trained into insignificance. The clergy had 
never renounced the hope of a revival of the temporal 
power of the Popes. It firmly believed that in the 
event of a successful war, of which it failed to appreciate 
the inevitable consequences, it would become possible . 
once more for the Emperor Francis Joseph to come for- 
ward as the defender of the faith. His reward for his 
support of German ambitions would be the right to raise 
the Church of Rome once more to the pinnacle at which 
it stood before the waves of progress had swept away its 
dominion. 

There was also another point that appealed to the 

199 



The Austrian Court from Within 

imagination of the Austrian ecclesiastical authorities. 
This had to do with Hungary, which was far from being 
as devout and as fanatical as her sister Austria. The 
clergy had never been able to establish a firm hold in the 
minds of the proud Magyars. On the contrary, general 
indifference in matters of religion prevailed equally 
among the fashionable world of Budapest and among the 
peasantry and the lower classes of the provinces. Try as 
they could, the clergy found it impossible to interfere 
with the conduct of affairs in Hungary, and they had 
had to resign themselves to wait for the unexpected. 

The war gave them their golden opportunity. The 
supreme ability of the Emperor William II. was shown 
in his persuasion of the Catholic clergy that its cherished 
ambitions were at last about to be fulfilled. For once 
the Church failed to grasp the true significance of the 
bait which was proffered, and rushed on to its fate, just 
as blindly as the Sovereign, just as joyfully as the diplo- 
mats who ought to have foreseen, and just as carelessly 
as the Ministers who had failed to avert the calamity 
which will demolish the throne of the Habsburgs. 



200 



CHAPTER XIII 

LEADERS OF MILITARISM AND DIPLOMACY 

EVER since the war broke out Austria has been 
boasting about her army, although she herself did 
not feel quite sure of the fact some two years ago. The 
world at large had long frankly doubted the existence of 
any troops worthy of the name, an attitude not without 
some reason, if one remembers that for something like 
three-quarters of a century the Austrian troops have been 
beaten invariably and ignominiously wherever they hap- 
pened to be engaged in strife, no matter with whom. 
Indeed, when Prince Bismarck realised his long-cherished 
dream of drawing together the two Central European 
Monarchies, who had been antagonists for so long, the 
public had wondered what possible advantage he could 
find in such an ally, who would never be able to be of 
any considerable military use. But it was not mihtary 
value that Bismarck wanted; he could do all that was 
requisite on that score, and events have proved that 
Austria could become very useful to her friend by assum- 
ing the responsibility of any action at a given moment. 
Without her it would not have been easy for Germany 
to find a pretext for declaring war upon the world, and 
in deciding upon Austria as a pawn, Prince Bismarck 

201 



The Austrian Court from Within 

read the future with unerring accuracy, owing to his 
experience of the past. 

The first German Chancellor had never been a partisan 
of a war with Russia, and yet he must have guessed that 
a conflict was but a question of time, and that Prussia 
would never rest before she had reduced that dangerous 
rival to the condition of France after the unfortunate 
campaign of 1870. Otherwise, it is hardly likely he 
would have given himself such trouble to secure the co- 
operation of a nation whose safety lay in the fact that 
it would have been too much trouble for her neighbours 
to destroy her. Germany wanted a screen to cover 
many of her designs and dissimulate her many personal 
ambitions. Austria offered her an excellent one. To 
this end, and this end only, was the Triple Alliance con- 
cluded and renewed. 

The wonderful diplomats who ruled in succession at 
the Ball Platz did not discover the fact, however, and 
Austrian vanity blinding them, they fully believed that 
their friendship was sought on account of its high value. 
The only one w^ho guessed what lurked behind the sudden 
affection of Bismarck was Count Andrassy ; but the latter 
did not in the least care what happened to Austria nor 
what her end would be — he worked for the good of 
Hungary and its exclusive interests. 

Andrassy 's successors, however, took themselves far 
more au serieucc than he had ever done. One of them, 
indeed, Count Aerenthal, really believed that Austria 

could secure for itself an independent position in the 

202 



German Overshadowings 

European Concert, equal to England, France or Russia. 
This clever, dashing, miniature statesman had ambitious 
dreams, but by a curious anomaly, whilst aspiring to 
shake off the state of dependence in which Germany had 
kept her Austrian neighbour and friend, he yet, un- 
known to his own self, played the very game which Berlin 
wished, and by his bold annexation of Bosnia and Herze- 
govina set fire to that spark which was to develop itself 
into the hugest conflagration which history has ever seen. 

In doing so, however. Count Aerenthal did not in the 
least follow the direction of the German Foreign Office. 
This institution, so remarkable by its dearth of really 
clever men, was absolutely incapable of any of those 
Machiavellian combinations for which it had been famous 
in the days of Prince Bismarck and of his favourite, Herr 
von Holstein. But outside the Foreign Office and the 
officials that thronged in the various departments of the 
Wilhelmstrasse there was a far more formidable power 
in Germany — the General Staff. By its close relations 
with the Staff in Vienna, its members influenced Austrian 
politics in a subtle manner, which, though it did not 
allow itself to be suspected, had more to do than most 
are aware with the policy to which Count Aerenthal, 
supported by his Sovereign, had clung during his tenure 
of the Foreign Office. 

The present war has certainly been brought about by 
the Prussian as well as by the Austrian military parties, 
who together worked out a plan of campaign which they 
fondly hoped would quickly put an end to their various 

203 



The Austrian Court from Within 

rivals by crushing them. The strangest thing about the 
whole matter was that each party, in working the scheme 
out, believed that it would turn to its own particular 
advantage and to the detriment of the other one. It was 
a comedy of dupes. 

When I say that this was a comedy of dupes, I must 
explain what I mean. To begin with Germany ; it had 
brought its army to a point of perfection which, as it 
believed, could not be improved upon. Its armaments 
were something quite formidable, its technical prepara- 
tions marvellous. Besides being convinced that it had 
prepared itself for every military eventuality, it also 
knew that no one in Europe could compete with it for 
the moment, but that if it did not hasten to make use of 
its enormous advantages and superiority, they might in 
time not prove so great, for the simple reason that all 
the other countries who distrusted them were beginning 
to awaken to the knowledge of the peril which threatened 
them, and were also organising themselves in view of a 
possible war. 

The German Staff knew very well that the Austrian 
army had got absolutely no backbone, and that it would 
find itself in the greatest difficulties if left alone to its 
own devices ; the question of having to go to its help 
was but one of time. When it arose, German officers 
would have to take command of Austrian troops. There- 
after the fate of the Habsburg Monarchy would be sealed, 
because if there was one thing about which the German 
Staff felt absolutely certain, it was that once Austria's 

204 



William II. and Hungary 

defence was handed over to Prussia, the latter would 
never give up the hold it would thus secure over the 
military resources of its ally, and would reduce it to a 
condition of vassalage. Germany would thus have at its 
disposal an army about twice as numerous as before, and 
under the iron discipline of Prussia it would soon acquire 
those martial virtues which the Austrian command had 
proved unable to infuse into the people it had enrolled 
under its banner. This consequence of a war that was 
most undoubtedly wished for in certain quarters in Berlin 
would have put the final touch to the work begun by 
Bismarck, and strengthen the great Empire he had built 
by incorporating in it all the German elements in 
Europe. 

This viewpoint explains also the favours lavished by 
the Emperor William II. on all Hungarian statesmen 
with whom he came into contact. Hungary was necessary 
to him in the accomplishment of this deeply laid scheme, 
of which he allowed it to guess sufficiently to come 
to the conclusion that, by helping it to mature, it 
would also work toward the recognition of its own entire 
independence. 

In Austria, and especially at the Ball Platz, quite 
different hopes were indulged in. There, Germany, or 
rather Berlin, with its overbearing ways, had never been 
anything else but an evil which had to be endured, 
because one hoped that out of it considerable good would 
ensue. Circumstances had obliged Austrian diplomacy 
to go on its way hand in hand with the Wilhelmstrasse, 

205 



The Austrian Court from Within 

and after the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, 
BerHn had been far more anxious to see Servia punished 
for a crime still unproven against her than Count Berch- 
told and all his staff. It is an open secret that the first 
idea of the ultimatum which was presented at Belgrade 
had originated from the German Ambassador in Vienna, 
Herr von Tschirsky, who, if one is to believe the rumours 
that circulated among those in close touch with the Hof- 
burg, had not only insisted upon the thunderbolt, but 
had even drawn out its broad lines. Whether he had 
done so in obedience to the inspiration of his immediate 
diplomatic chiefs, or under the influence of the General 
Staff, it is impossible for me to say. Perhaps it was due i 
to both. 

But even a weak and not far-seeing man such as 
Count Berchtold would not have given in so easily to 
the pressure put upon him had he not had also his own 
personal views in the matter. Austria, vain as she had 
always been, had an aim in view, and that was to shake 
off the yoke which Germany had laid upon her. She 
fully expected that her armies would not only prove of 
immense help to Germany, but also win so many laurels, 
and such victories over the Russian troops — which a mis- 
taken and badly informed intelligence service had led 
her to believe were totally vmfit to hold the field against 
her — that she would be able to shake off at last the semi- 
allegiance which had been imposed upon her by her 
formidable ally, and after the war obtain from the latter 

advantages as from an equal in strength. 

206 



A Military Enigma 

When one thinks about all that took place during the 
memorable months that have since gone by, one fails to 
find an explanation for the complete eclipse the Austrian 
army has experienced. It is impossible to call the 
Austrian a coward, and any amount of trouble is taken 
over his military training. The men are not devoid of 
patriotism, the officers are eager to do their duty, and 
most painstaking. Their armaments are excellent, and, 
indeed, their big guns are quite equal to the famous 
German " Fat Bertha," about which such a fuss has been 
made. Their cavalry is very well mounted, and their 
infantry knows how to handle its rifles just as well as the 
Prussians. And yet with it all the Austrians have never 
been able to beat their enemies single-handed, and their 
successes have only been obtained when they have found 
themselves placed under the command of German officers. 

One may well wonder at this strange fact, and the only 
manner in which it can be explained is the want of natural 
intelligence of the Austrian nation, combined with the 
inordinate vanity of all those who are entrusted with the 
mission of leading it either to triumph or to total destruc- 
tion. Now, after eighteen months of war, it is still 
impossible to point out a single Austrian commander 
having made for himself a great name. Germany can 
boast of Hindenburg, Mackensen and Falkenhayn, and 
others ; Austria can only point fo Kusmanek, the com- 
mander of Przemysl, who gave up that fortress to the 
Russians. 

In the matter of the calculations indulged in at Berlin 

207 



The Austrian Court from Within 

concerning the probability of obtaining the sole control of 
the Austrian forces, facts have fully justified them. In 
spite of his obstinacy, Francis Joseph had to recognise 
that it was impossible for his troops to stand the pressure 
of Russian arms, and when he had given his consent to 
the appointment of German officers — a consent which, it 
is not generally known, was only obtained by the threat 
of William II. to conclude a separate peace with the 
Tsar — Galicia was cleared of its invaders, and Warsaw 
and other Russian fortresses taken by the united forces 
of Prussia and of its allies. Germany took all the credit, 
whatever other factor caused the retirement. In the joy 
of these unexpected successes the Austrian Government 
forgot the important circumstance that, sooner or later, 
it would have to pay heavily for them. 

Indeed, when one comes to examine the whole situa- 
tion as it presents itself to the eyes of any impartial 
spectator, one wonders whether to be most surprised at 
the lightheartedness with which the Austrian diplomacy 
rushed into an adventure whence it had not the slightest 
chance of coming out with advantage, or the want of 
foresight of Austrian military chiefs, who believed that 
they were sure of victory. Another queer symptom in 
this whole business is that to this day Austrian statesmen 
have not grasped the humiliating position in which they 
stand in regard to Germany. 

Unfortunately for them, the day of reckoning, per- 
haps less distant than they imagine, will nevertheless 

dawn, and expiation will be heavy ; the sins of the present 

208 



The Fate of Austria 

will meet with cruel chastisement in the future, no matter 
what may be the outcome of the war. Were the Germans 
to become victorious, Prussia would thrust Austria aside 
with the utmost unconcern, after taking away from her 
all that was worth taking ; Hungary and Bohemia would 
claim independence, and Austria would cease to exist, 
at least in her present shape and form. 

Every day, however, makes it more certain that the 
Allies will win, when the fate of Austria will indeed be 
a sad one. Russia will, of course, take Galicia; Italy, 
Trieste and the Valley of the Trentino, together with the 
Tyrol; Servia will claim Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 
Croatia thrown into the bargain ; whilst two new king- 
doms, those of Bohemia and of Hungary, will arise out 
of the ashes of the Austrian Monarchy. 

What then will remain to the Habsburgs of all their 
former proud possessions? What will they do, who will 
be put in their place, and what will be the fate of the 
few German provinces that their realm contains ? These 
will form some of the most serious questions of the 
settlement. 

Among the Austrians I fail to find a man capable of 

an attempt to save his Fatherland from the annihilation 

which awaits it in the near future. Not one among all 

the officials of the Ball Platz has, so far, given proofs of 

sufficient talents to enable him to cope with difficulties of 

the magnitude of those that await his country on the day 

when accounts have to be squared. Count Berchtold, 

who at least has some diplomatic experience behind him, 
o 209 



The Austrian Court from Within 

is neither a strong character nor capable of assuming 
a great responsibiHty. His right hand whilst he was at 
the head of Austrian Foreign Affairs, Baron de Macchio, 
who when the war broke out was sent to Rome in the 
hope of persuading Italy to remain neutral in the conflict, 
is hardly a tactful man ; Baron Forgach, another high 
official at the Ball Platz, though an exceedingly clever 
Austrian, could not carry a situation; Count Szapary, 
who when the war broke out was Ambassador in Peters- 
burg, lacks wise decision ; the former Minister in 
Belgrade, Baron Giesl von Gieslingen, is the kind of man 
who is always ready to obey instructions given by his 
superiors ; Count Szecsen de Temerin, who for something 
like four years represented Austria-Hungary in Paris, 
is a man of the world and nothing else; whilst Count 
Albert Mensdorff, whom London used to see on first 
nights occupying a seat in the omnibus box at the Opera, 
is too highly connected to be aught else but a favourite 
of royalty. 

The only really capable individual I can see in the 
Austrian Foreign Office is Count Tarnowski, a Pole, who 
has had some decided successes at Sofia, and to whose 
activity can be attributed a good deal of King Ferdinand's 
resolution to throw in his fate with that of Germany and 
of Austria. But then Count Tarnowski is not the kind 
of man capable of holding his own in occasions of supreme 
importance. He is one of those people who can do ex- 
cellent work, especially when it comes to wander in the 

domain of underground politics that has no secrets for 

210 



A Desperate Situation 

him ; but it remains an open question whether he would 
ever be strong enough to fight in the defence of a des- 
perate cause. And that the situation is a desperate one 
for the Dual Monarchy I do not think that anyone who 
has given himself the trouble to study the European 
situation, such as it presents itself after one year and a 
half of war, will doubt for an instant. 



211 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE GREAT DISILLUSION OF THE FUTURE 

WHEN all the circumstances which I have tried to 
expose in the previous chapters are taken into 
account, the conclusion to which the reader is bound to 
come is that, no matter how the results of the Great War 
are discounted, or from what point of view one may look 
at them, one fact stands out prominently, and that is the 
coming annihilation of Austria. 

Austria is diseased and corrupt. The curious thing 
in this general disease is the mentality of her people. It 
would be ridiculous to say that they are aU bad, or stupid, 
or vicious. At the same time it would be hazardous 
to affirm that they are not all foolish, with but a few 
exceptions. 

The Austrian has never been able to give himself a 

proper account of his qualities nor of his defects, either 

as a nation or as an individual. He has been born and 

bred in an artificial moral atmosphere which has made him 

take the night for the day and mistake black for white. 

He does it in all innocence and ignorance, but — and there 

the cloven foot shows — he will not admit that he may be 

wrong, that the lessons which he has learnt have not been 

based on something solid and true. His religion, which 

212 




ARCHDUCHESS ZITA 



The Austrian Temperament 

has never been properly explained to him, has imbued him 
with a feeling which is not faith — for faith supposes always 
some grandeur of the soul — but belief, which is some- 
thing far different, for one may easily come to believe 
what one wishes, an impossible thing for the man who 
has realised the significance of the solemn Latin word 
fide. 

The average Austrian is the kind of person who will 
insist, from the moral point of view, on sending his 
neighbour to church on Sundays, but who will never 
stretch out a hand of indulgence to a repentant sinner; 
who will fail to grasp that form of human suffering which 
proceeds from intellectual or religious doubt, and which 
causes such a harrowing distress to an intelligent mind. 

Progress is a word devoid of meaning for Austrians, 
because those among them who have been educated think 
that it implies impiety and contempt for what their 
fathers held sacred and what they reverence themselves ; 
whilst the lower classes have been taught by the clergy 
to fear it as an emanation of the Evil One himself. It is 
hardly to be believed, but there are to the present day 
villages in Austria where the inhabitants speak about the 
telephone installed in the post office as an invention of 
the devil, and would die rather than use it. I happen to 
know personally a case where a lady, having engaged a 
new housemaid, was implored by the latter 's parents not 
to insist on their daughter speaking at the telephone, as 
she would be endangering the safety of her soul in doing 
so. Telegrams are still looked upon with suspidon, and 

213 



The Austrian Court from Within 

a railway train with apprehension. The lack of culture 
in some Tyrolean and Styrian villages is indeed astonish- 
ing, and yet the people who inhabit them are supposed 
to have political opinions, and to be able to say the last 
word as to what advantages Austria must obtain from 
the present war. 

When these facts have been appreciated at their 
proper value, it is no longer to be wondered that the 
Government finds in the population an instrument as 
pliable to its wishes as it requires. It is mistaken, how- 
ever, in fancying that the country has opinions of its own ; 
it fails to realise that these opinions are almost always 
artificial, imposed by the clergy or the officials. 

A friend of mine, who happened to be staying at a 
country house in Transylvania when the war broke out, 
related to me that the peasantry, when told that it had 
to prepare to start for the army, was quite convinced 
that it was going to fight for the restoration of the tem- 
poral power of the Pope. Had it not been persuaded 
that such was the case, it is to be doubted whether it would 
have shown so much enthusiasm as it eventually displayed. 
This absence of comprehension as to what goes on 
around it renders the Austrian of the lower classes a 
passive, aimless being, liable to break down under the first 
provocation. It explains why, early in the war, when 
the Russians entered Galicia, the army, or at least what 
existed of the army there, made so feeble a resistance. 
Incredible as it may appear, it is a fact that sometimes 

five or i^ Russians sent on patrol service returned to head- 

214 



Austrian Military OflScers 

quarters with fifty, sixty, and sometimes one hundred 
prisoners, who had followed them not only with resigna- 
tion, but even with pleasure. The Austrian troops at 
this stage of the campaign had but one idea in their heads 
— to see it come to an end. They did not care to fight, 
and preferred being taken captive to the risk of being 
killed. 

The officers, again, gave their men no example of 
stubbornness. These indolent young fellows, for whom 
the military service had never appeared in any other light 
than that of an inevitable necessity, were not cowards by 
any means, but they simply did not see the use of being 
exterminated for the sake of a Government which they 
did not like, even when they thought it could do no 
wrong. The person of the Sovereign, too, was not 
popular among them, for the reason that the etiquette 
which divided Francis Joseph from his subjects made him 
so much above common humanity that the latter had 
ended by considering him so far from it that it was not 
worth while thinking about him at all. Francis Joseph, 
in the eyes of those whom he believes to be his faithful 
subjects, appears in much the same light as a strong room 
in a bank, something beyond the reach even of burglars 
with housebreaking aptitudes and tendencies. 

So much for the population in general. With the 
aristocracy the same feeling is differently expressed. 
They also do not want to die ; they care for the war no 
more than the people, and fail to understand or to grasp 
the colossal issues involved. But they believe with their 

215 



The Austrian Court from Within 

placid temperaments that when peace will be restored 
their former existence will begin again, though in greater 
prosperity, in consequence of the defeat of the Russians. 
They are persuaded, these good people, that they will 
win the war; but why or by what means they do not 
give themselves the trouble to think. 

Austrian vanity is so great that it refuses to admit any 
of its own mistakes or errors, and shifts them to other 
people's shoulders with an ease and a rapidity quite 
worthy of admiration. To begin with the Sovereign and 
to end with the street-sweeper, every Austrian citizen is 
convinced, even when he sees his soldiers beaten, that 
the God who blessed the fortunes of Israel is on his side, 
and that He will make everything right in the long run. 
Common sense was never the strong point of any of the 
people ruled by the Habsburgs. On the other hand, they 
are very impressionable in all matters concerning their 
personal comforts, and allow themselves most easily to 
take their wishes for granted, without remembering that 
very often these turn out to be self-sown curses. 

At the present moment the Austrians live in perfect 
security as to the future. They differ in this from the 
Germans, who already begin to realise that this war, for 
which they had prepared themselves with such persever- 
ance, is assuming a most threatening aspect. The 
Austrians do not see the little black clouds now gathering 
on the horizon, and it is pretty certain that when the 
storm breaks it will find them quite unprepared to stand 

its fury, with no one to explain to them what they ought 

216 



The Great Disillusionment 

to do, nor the reasons that have brought about the 
catastrophe. If the AlHes succeed in beating the Austro- 
Prussian confederation, they will find that Germany will 
set her teeth together, suffer in silence, and prepare for 
revenge, but that Austria, on the contrary, will immedi- 
ately fall to pieces. 

This is the great disillusionment that the future has 
in store. To say that it has not been deserved would be 
untrue. The misfortunes of Austria are entirely the fault 
of those who have led her politics for the last forty years, 
and given to them such a false direction. Metternich 
and Prince Schwarzenberg saw clearly through Prussian 
ambition, and all the time they remained in office worked 
towards the annihilation of the kingdom of the Hohen- 
zollerns, and humiliated them at Olmiitz in a way they 
had never known before. Had they lived longer we may 
not have had to mourn the disaster of Sedan or the 
horrors of the present war. What Prince Schwarzenberg 
had been aiming at was to throw Prussia out of the 
German Confederation, or at least to annul her means of 
resistance, to paralyse her movements, and to reduce her 
to the condition of other small German States, like 
Saxony or the dukedoms of Baden and Hesse. This had 
been the labour of his whole life, and he very nearly 
accomplished the vast designs he had been nursing in that 
direction when he compelled Prussia to subscribe to the 
Olmiitz Convention that settled for ever, as he and others 
with him believed, the preponderance of Austria over the 

whole of Germany. 

217 



The Austrian Court from Within 

After Prince Schwarzenberg came disorder, inaction, 
foolishness, incapacity, and the destruction of his great 
political ideal — the fixed resolution to maintain the dignity 
of Austria, and to prevent any encroachment of Prussia 
on its prerogatives as leader of the German Confederation. 

Prince Felix Schwarzenberg was a great Minister, but 
he never possessed the confidence of his Sovereign. 
Francis Joseph was obliged to bear with him, but he 
neither liked nor trusted him. After him another great 
one arose in Germany, but, unfortunately for the peace 
of the world, he was born in Prussia. The Prince had 
seen clearly what the future held in store for Germany, 
and indeed for the whole of Europe, unless the Prussian 
monster was crushed. 

But, unfortunately, Schwarzenberg alone had seen. 

After his death his warnings were disregarded, because 

they implied dissatisfaction with the views of those who 

came after him, and especially of the Emperor, who 

had never approved the line of policy followed by his 

Minister. Francis Joseph failed to see the danger which 

Schwarzenberg had repeatedly urged him to notice. He 

picked a quarrel with Italy that resulted in the war of 

1859, which ended so disastrously for him and for his 

arms. Then he continued on terms of hostility with 

France, which lasted all through the life of the Second 

Empire, and which made him turn a deaf ear to the 

entreaties of some people who begged him to enter the 

field in her favour in 1870, an event which, if it had only 

taken place, woidd have considerably changed the whole 

218 



The Hand of Bismarck 

course of European politics. He saw nothing, noticed 
nothing, beyond the gratification of his own petty spites 
and revengeful feelings ; and, in his rage at the loss of the 
battle of Solferino, he overlooked the disaster which was 
bound to overtake him and his Monarchy by the abandon- 
ment of the policy to which Prince Schwarzenberg had 
clung with such perseverance and obstinacy. 

Other people, however, did not forget it, and Prussia 
was to keep its remembrance always before her eyes. 
With a perfidy of which Prince Bismarck alone was 
capable, she stretched her hand to Austria, after having 
defeated her at Sadowa, and so destroying all the work of 
Prince Schwarzenberg. And, belonging to the race of 
people who never forget an injury, and avenge it even 
after many years, she lured Austria on to her destruction 
with a smiling face and words of affection on her lips. A 
cleverer man than Francis Joseph might have been taken 
in by these false protestations. A vain and presumptuous 
one like he has been all through his life and career was 
hopelessly deceived. 

When Francis Joseph ascended the throne as a young 
man, he might have done much good had he only 
possessed a small, infinitely small, portion of what is called 
a heart, and if he had not been imbued with the feeling 
of his own importance and of the inferiority of the whole 
world in regard to his person. As it was, his whole career 
has proved to be one of selfishness and of disdain for the 
miseries and the sufferings of his subjects. 

To his immediate family the Eraiperor proved a tyrant. 

219 



The Austrian Court from Within 

He had a wife who was everything that was lovely and 
fair, but he made her life a hell, and then wept at her 
death without having had the grace to go and look for 
the last time on her mortal remains. He had a son whom 
he almost goaded into an act of madness. He had a 
nephew whom he disliked, and to whom he did not have 
the decency to award a respectable grave. He had rela- 
tives to whom he showed himself, in turn, cruel and 
despotic, whom he either relegated into exile like his 
brother, or deprived of their name and status in the world 
like the unfortunate Crown Princess of Saxony. He had 
friends whom he betrayed ; Ministers to whom he did not 
tell the truth; mistresses whom he forsook; an army 
about which he did not care, though expecting it to do 
its duty ; subjects whom he oppressed ; allies whom he 
hoped he might forsake. 

When one thinks of the hundreds of thousands of 
wives, mothers, orphaned children who weep over the 
loss of their dear ones, for whose death Francis Joseph 
is directly responsible, one can but hope that the great 
disillusion will come while the old Emperor is still alive, 
and that ere he dies he will recognise the evil he has 
brought to a world which he did not hesitate, when 
standing himself on the brink of his grave, to plunge 
into an ocean of suffering, distress, and pain. 



220 



CHAPTER XV 
A bird's-eye view 

1HAVE come to the end of my task. Perhaps some 
of my readers will find that I have been hard on the 
people whom I have attempted to describe, that I have 
not judged them fairly or impartially. To that reproach 
I shall reply that I never meant to be indulgent. I fully 
meant to make this book a record of the iniquities and 
of the recklessness and foolishness of an ignorant and 
unprincipled nation that, by its hypocrisy, has brought 
terrible misfortune on the world. At the same time, 
though I have excused nothing, I do not think that I 
have denied any of the few virtues which I have observed. 
Severe though I may seem, I am the first to recog- 
nise that the Austrians, had they only been properly 
governed and instructed, might have proved to be 
sympathetic people, inoffensive in their actions and in 
their manners. Unfortunately for them and for their 
reputation in history, they have had the misfortune to be 
ruled by a degenerate dynasty, which never looked beyond 
its personal advantages, and never once gave its subjects 
the example of fidelity to a given word or of gratitude 
for a rendered service. 

The sense of self-importance which always pervaded 

221 



The Austrian Court from Within 

the Habsburgs has weighed heavily over Austria, and has 

been the cause of its moral downfall, as well as of the 

numerous material disasters that have overtaken it in 

the past. When King John Sobieski of Poland delivered 

besieged Vienna, and drove away from its walls the 

Turkish troops commanded by Kara Mustapha, the 

Emperor Leopold did not even find it necessary to 

thank him for having saved him, and forbade the clergy 

to receive him with any pomp or ceremony when he 

entered the cathedral of St. Stephen for the first time ; 

he did not find a single priest to officiate at the service 

of thanksgiving he had wished to have celebrated. The 

Polish hero himself started singing the Te Deum, the 

words of which his soldiers took up after him, until at 

last a French monk, who happened to be among those 

present, mounted the pulpit and addressed a few words i 

to the assembled multitude, which he began by the verse 

of the Gospel : " There was a man sent from God whose 

name was John." For this the monk was the very next 

day ordered to leave Vienna by the Emperor. 

The latter at last received Sobieski in solemn audience, 

after long negotiations regarding the ceremonial, Spanish 

etiquette not admitting that an elective monarch should 

be granted the same honours as an hereditary one. When 

the King was ushered into the presence of Leopold, the 

latter did not even get up from his arm-chair, and the 

only words which he found to say were that " he felt sorry 

not to have been able to see him before," to which the 

Polish hero replied, not without malice, that " he re- 

222 



Repeated History 

gretted the service he had been happy to render to him 

had been such a small one." 

The incident is historic. Leopold had nearly seen his 

capital fall into the hands of the Moslems ; they had 

driven him from a considerable portion of his dominions ; 

he had lost the best part of Hungary, which had joined 

the invaders, and yet when, through an unexpected piece 

of luck, help on which he had absolutely no right to count 

had been sent to him, and the Turks had been routed so 

completely that they had had to fly, abandoning all their 

treasures, the Emperor did not find a single word of 

thanks for his deliverer, but began to put forward 

miserable questions of etiquette. Can one wonder that 

Sobieski, disgusted, turned his back on Vienna and on 

its Sovereign, and expressed to his friends his surprise at 

this extraordinary treatment? 

This incident shows how the Habsburgs all through 

their history have been the same as they are to-day, that 

amidst their greatest trials, as well as during their most 

glorious days, they have ever allowed petty subjects to 

engross their minds, and have put before everything else 

the homage which they considered to be due to them and 

to their exalted position. Gratitude has been unknown 

to them, simply because they firmly believed that all the 

good that came to them was nothing but what they had 

the right to expect, and for which they need not return 

any thanks. 

^ It is probable that if the present Austrian Emperor 

fell from a window of the Hofburg he would, instead of 

223 



The Austrian Court from Within 

rewarding, punish the man who hfted him up if the 
latter did not possess quarterings entithng him to lay 
hands on the sacred person of his Sovereign. 

That this state of things should leave its impress on 
the nation is but natural. 

Austria, apathetic and without initiative, has held in 
fatuous respect the grandeur of her ruling House, and 
has been blind to her own material interests, has delighted 
in her ignorance, in her want of experience, in her faculty 
for seeing everything to do with her existence as a nation 
through rose-coloured spectacles. She has never even 
imagined that there might exist about her, as about 
everything else in this world, sordid and ugly sides which 
ought to be suppressed so far as it was in human power 
to do so. She has been politically, intellectually, morally 
and physically pharasaical. Her joy at her own perfection 
has been such that she has forgotten that others might 
not see her in the same light. 

This circumstance explains why in later years Austrian 

statesmen have been so inferior, and why Austrian 

political men have found it so difficult, when they did not 

belong by birth to the higher classes of Society, to make 

their voices heard. Lately the middle classes have come 

to the front rather prominently, and have tried to push 

themselves forward to the detriment of the old owners 

of the soil. In any other country their entering into 

the lists might have disturbed its equanimity ; in Austria 

it has not been able to influence the course of events, nor 

to change anything of the general spirit which prevails 

224 



The Dark Future 

in those circles which alone hold in their hands the keys 
to the political situation. As a people they have learnt 
nothing, seen nothing, and failed to appreciate the gravity 
of the events taking place under their own eyes. It is 
easy to see that their end is but a question of time, and 
that not far distant. 

As to what this end will be I have already prophesied. 
One thing is very certain — ^there can be no peace in 
Europe so long as Austria is allowed to go on existing 
under the conditions which have ruled of recent years. 
It is time that this tool in the hands of her powerful 
German neighbour should be denied the possibility of 
serving as an excuse for the latter's misdeeds. We have 
had enough intrigues; it is time that peace should be 
restored to the world, and this can never be so long as 
Austria is not rendered harmless. And the only way in 
which she can be made harmless is to rid her of an excuse 
for disturbing the world by any of the vagaries inspired 
in her by others or simply by her own want of intelli- 
gence and of common sense, by reducing her to the 
condition of a secondary State. 

Who can deny that we should not have been plunged 
in the misfortune of the present war if Europe had been 
wise, and prevented the incorporation of Bosnia and of 
Herzegovina into the Austrian Empire? Further, there 
are Poland, Bohemia, Transylvania, Croatia, Dalmatia, 
Tyrol, Trieste, all eager to be delivered from her rule, 
and who, so long as they remain in her dependence, will 
furnish her with pretexts for making mischief in the 
p 225 



The Austrian Court from Within 

world. The dismemberment of Austria is as necessary 
as the destruction of Prussian mihtarism. 

The Habsburgs have had their day, and they will sink 
into obscurity, and Austria herself will have to expiate 
the want of moral backbone that has been one of her 
worst defects. Her government will have to be modified, 
her middle classes called to take up their share of the 
burden ; her aristocracy will have to give up its former 
prejudices and renounce many of its standing privileges ; 
her clergy must restrict their action and influence to the 
limits beyond which interference becomes a peril for the 
State ; and the instruction of her population will have to 
be considerably improved and widened. 

The war will bring about many changes in poor bleed- 
ing Europe ; it will destroy many things she reverenced, 
and will set up new beliefs in place of the old ones. What 
these changes and these beliefs will be it is impossible 
now to foresee, but it will certainly be possible for us 
then to write at the end of one great chapter in the book 
of history the words. Finis Austria. 



226 



INDEX 



Adelgonda of Bavaria, Princess, 76 
Aerenthal, Count, 72, 73, 101, 150, 
202-3 

and Prince Alfred Montenuovo, 91 

his successor, 83 

quarrels with Francis Ferdinand, 82 
Albert, Archduke, 69 

death of, 174 
Albert of Saxony, King, 96 

and the Triple Alliance, 97 

as peacemaker, 96 

death of, 99 

grudge against Russia, 98 

influence of, 97 

Prince von Montenuovo and, 98 
Albrecht, Professor Paul, 183-7 
Alexander II. of Russia and the war 

of 1866, 98 
Alphonso XIII., King of Spain, 174 
Andrassy, Count, 74, 202 

and the Triple Alliance, 30, 147-8 

condemned to death, 146 

inaugurates Austro-German alliance, 
147 
Apponyi, Count, 149, 152 
Austria, a satellite of Prussia, 143 

and the Crimean War, 98 

and the Separatist movement in 
Galicia, 166 

annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina* 
73, 75, 82, 203, 225 

army of, 201 

clergy of, 188-200 

dismemberment of, a necessity, 226 

eclipse of its army, 207 

fate of, 209, 225 

Germany and, 31, 205 

hatred of Russia, 150 

Heir-apparent of, 65, 85 

Hungarian diplomats in, 149-150 

Hungarian domination in, 148-9 



Austria, Imperial family, 48-71 
intermarriage in, 131 
pliable population of, 214 
politics in, 135, 136 
priesthood of, 194 
religious papers in, 192 
Roman Catholicism in, 16 
Ruthenians and, 165 
ultimatum to Servia, 31, 197, 206 
vetoes election of Cardinal Ram- 

polla as Pope, 188 
want of progress in, 213 
war with Italy, 218 
Austrian aristocracy, the exclusiveness 

of, 131 
aristocracy, principal occupation, 132 
army, complete failure of, 214. 
army, German officers in command? 

204, 207, 208 
Court, archaic distinctions, 137, 151, 

152 ; etiquette of, 27, 28, 33, 36, 

42, 145 
Empire, different nationalities in, 

159 
German Ambassadors at, 100-1 
iron etiquette of, 27, 28, 33, 36, 42 
military officers, 215 
Austrians, excessive vanity of, 216 
temperament of, 213 
unpleasant manners of, 134 



Baden, 217 

Balkan crisis, Francis Ferdinand's atti- 
tude, 73 

Batthyany, Count Louis, suicide of, 18 

Batthyany, Countess, 18 

Bavaria, Archduchess Sophy in. (See 
Sophy, Empress) 

Bavaria, Prince George of, 176 et seq. 

Bavaria, Princess Adelgonda of, 76 

227 



Index 



Berchtold, Count, 101, 136, 153, 197, 
206, 209 

marriage of, 153 

resignation of, 154 

succeeds Aerenthal, 83 
Berchtold, Countess, 83 
Bismarck, 30, 219 

a long-cherished dream realised, 
201 

and the Triple Alliance, 30, 31, 97, 
99, 148, 202 
Bohemia, 209, 225 

and Russia, 169, 170 

Czechs and, 167 

future of, 171 

German landowners in, 167, 168 

German tyranny in, 171 
Bosnia, 159, 209 

annexation of, 73, 75, 82, 203, 225 

Roman Catholicism in, 196 
Bourbon Parma, Princess Zita of, 65 
Bourbon Sicily, Princess of, marries 

Archduke Charles Louis, 58 
Budapest and international politics, 
149 

coronation anniversary, 44 

scenes following Hungarian rebellion, 
17 

society in, 155 
Bukowina, 159, 166 
Bulgaria, 163 

the Church of, 196 
Burg, Ferdinand, 63 
Burian, Baron, 154 



Cairo, Marie Vetsera at, 119 
Caroline of Wasa, Princess, marries 

Albert of Saxony, 96 
Cavriani, Count, 59 
Charles Louis, Archduke, 57 

death of, 58 

his three marriages, 57 
Charles Stephen, Archduke, 161 

morganatic marriage of his daughter, 
186 
Charlotte of Belgium, Princess, 50, 56 

becomes Queen of Mexico, 54 
Chernigov, 164 
Chotek, Count and Countess, 77, 78 



Chotek, Countess (sister of Duchess of 
Hohenberg), marries Baron Wuth- 
enau, 191 
Chotek, Countess Sophy, 59 

funeral of, 61 

Lady-in-Waiting to Archduchess 
Isabella, 77 

Marie Th6r6se and, 59, 60 

marriage of, 60, 176 

murder of, 58, 61, 72 

{See also Hohenberg, Duchess of) 
Choteks, the, 168 

Clam-Gallas, Countess Clotilde, 141 
Clarys, the, 168 

Clementine of Coburg, Princess, 196 
Clergy, Austrian, aspirations of, 199 
Clerical party, the, 68 
Convent of Noble Ladies, Prague, 64, 

65 
Corfu, the Kaiser's holiday at, 84 
Cracow, 161 

the Archbishop of, 190 
Crimean War, Austria and, 98 
Croatia, 159, 209, 225 
Croy, Princess Isabella of, 69, 173 

marries Archduke Frederick, 69, 137 
Cumberland, Duke and Duchess of, 138 
Czartoryski, Prince, 161, 164 
Czechs, the, 159, 167-72 

their ambitions and aspirations, 167, 
170 



D'Alen^on, Duchess, 45 

Dalmatia, 225 

Dnieper, the, 164 

Dual Monarchy, the, 146, 149, 150, 211 



Elie of Parma, Prince, 176 
Elisabeth, Archduchess (daughter of 

Crown Prince Rudolph), 71 
Elisabeth, Archduchess (daughter of 

Marie Valerie), 70 
Elisabeth, Empress, 23, 32 

and her son, 125 

as diplomat, 42 

assassination of, 32, 95, 96, 108 

at Miramar, 51, 56 

betrothal of, 24 



228 



Index 



Elisabeth, Empress, coronation, 152 

desire for solitude, 28, 44 

demestic scenes, 35 

etiquette of Austrian Court, 27, 28, 
33, 36, 42, 145 

failing health of, 45 

final breach with her husband, 29 

friendship with Archduke Maxi- 
milian, 36, 50, 51 

funeral of, 46, 47, 220 

her children, 29, 33, 36, 37, 38 

her " Recollections," 40 

ill-health of, 37 

interference of her mother-in-law, 
26-8, 34-5, 103 

last hours of, 45 

last public appearances of, 44 

love of travel, 45 

marriage of, 26 

mournful vigil of, 129 

persistent misunderstanding of, 36 

popularity with Hungarians, 35, 42, 
145 

public entry into Vienna, 25 

unhappy married life of, 33, 103, 104, 
220 

visits Frau Schratt, 106 
Elisabeth Amelie, Archduchess, mar- 
riage of, 66 
ErdSdy, Countess, 151 
Esterhaxy, Princess Eugenie, 174 
Eulenburg, Prince, 100 
Euxinograd, 92 



Falkenhayn, 207 
Ferdinand I., abdication^of, 15 

characteristics of, 2 

death of, 15 

his religious tendencies, 3, 4 

marriage, 2 

parentage, 2 

question of his abdication, 3, 4, 10, 
11, 13-15 
Ferdinand Charles, Archduke, 62 

a romance and a morganatic mar- 
riage, 63-4 

death of, 64 

Marie Therdse and, 63, 64 

renounces titles and rank, 63 



Ferdinand of Bulgaria, King, 91, 92 
Ferdinand of Coburg, 196 
Festetics, Princess, 142 
Forgich, Baron, 210 
France, the war of 1870, 202 

war of 1859, 29 
Francis II., Emperor, his sons, 1, 6 
Francis Charles, Archduke, 4, 10 

his sons, 7 

marriage of, 6 

renounces^ right of succession, 15 
Francis Ferdinand, Archduke, 57, 58, 
59, 175 

and Count Aerenthal, 72, 73, 75, 82 

assassination of, 58, 61, 72, 85, 152 

Francis Joseph and, 79 

funeral of, 61, 94 

guest of William II. at Potsdam, 81 

his stepmother's favourite, 61 

marriage of, 59, 60, 75, 76, 176 

Prince von Montenuovo and, 92 

quarrels with Aerenthal, 82 

renounces his rights of succession, 76 

reorganises Austrian army, 72-3 

reputed meanness of, 76 

the affairs of, 72-86 

visits King George at "Windsor, 81 
Francis Joseph, Emperor, affection for 
Archduchess Frederick, 181 

and the Hungarian rebellion, 17-18, 
150 

and the Triple Alliance, 30 

as archduke and emperor, 

ascends the throne, 15 

attempted assassination of. 

becomes King of Hungary, 18, 145, 
150 

brutality of, 55 

character sketch of, 16-17, 19-20 

coronation, 152 

Count Louis Batthyany and, 18 

Czechs and, 171 

dislike of Schwarzenberg, 218 

engagement of, 24 

enmity towards Archduke Maxi- 
milian, 30, 36, 50, 52 

exiles the Archduke Otto, 67 

family life of, 30 

fickleness of, 103-4 

Francis Ferdinand and, 79 



1-31 



20 



229 



Index 



Francis Joseph, Emperor, Frau Schratt 
and, 105 et seq. 

" grief " at Iiis brother's murder, 56 

hatred of Russia, 30, 73 

his brothers, 49 

his cousins, 23 

Hungarian domination, 149 

Intervenes in Papal election, 188 et 
seq. 

last meeting with Archduke Maxi- 
milian, 54 

liaisons of, 22, 28, 33, 49, 70, 102 et 
seq. 

marriage of, 26, 103 

message to Nicholas L, 18-19 

personal friends of, 87-101 

popularity of, 9 

private valet of, 104 

quarrels with Archduke Maximilian, 
51 

reconciliation of Hungary with, 42, 
146 

refuses consent to marriage of Arch- 
duchess Isabella, 187 

religious tendencies of, 190-1 

reprisals against Hungary, 17, 19-20 

serious illness of, 84 

tragic end of his only son, 30, 43, 
116-130 

visits Italy, 50 

visits the Riviera, 45 

William 11. and, 99-100 
Frederick, Archduke, 69, 137, 173 

goes to the front, 183 

marries Princess Isabella of Croy, 69 
Frederick, Archduchess (Isabella of 

Croy), and her daughter, 181 
Fremdenblatt, the, 192 



Galicia, 160, 209 
a separatist Ruthenian movement 

in, 166 
anti-Russian agitation in, 160 
Austria and, 162 
Austrian persecution in, 166 
enemy successes in, 208 
itsiuture, 166 

Russian occupation of, 164, 214 
Ruthenians in, 164 



George V., King, receives Francis Fer- 
dinand at Windsor, 81 
George of Bavaria, Prince, a favourite 
with Francis Joseph, 177 
his wife obtains divorce, 180 
marries Isabella (daughter of Arch- 
duke Frederick), 176, 177 
shady reputation of, 176 
George of Waldbourg, Count, 70 
Georgey, leader of Hungarian rebellion, 

17 
German Confederation, the Habsburgs 

and, 29 
Germany aids Austria in the Great 
War, 31 
and Austria, 205 
and the Great War, 31, 85 
preparedness for war, 31, 85, 204 
the General Staff, 203, 204 
Giesl, Baron, 210 

Gisela, Archduchess, 176, 177, 1/8, 179 
Godfrey of Hohenlohe Schillingsfurst, 

Prince, 176 
Godollo, 42, 145 
Goluchowski, Count, 74 
Great War, the, Austria and, 31 

Germany's preparations, 31, 85, 204 

outbreak of, 152 

the clergy and, 195-200 



Habsbueg dynasty, 1, 6, 9, 14, 21, 22, 

27, 29, 32, 48 
Habsburgs, the, degeneracy of, 4, 16 

Poles and, 159, 161, 162 

their probable fall, 154 
Haymerle, Baron von, 74 
H616ne, Princess, 23 

frank speech with Francis Joseoh, 23 
Herzegovina, 159, 209 

annexation of, 73, 75, 82, 203, 225 

Roman Catholicism in, 196 
Hesse, 217 

Hietzing, Frau Schratt's villa at, 108 
Hindenburg, 207 
Hirsch, Baron, 140 
Hohenberg, Duchess of, 57, 79, 168 

a guest at Windsor, 81 

a league against, 175 

and the Clerical party, 81 



230 



Index 



Hohenberg, Duchess of, awarded 
special rank, 93 

Frau Schratt and, 110 

funeral of, 94 

invited by William II. to Potsdam, 81 

snubbed by Prince Montenuovo, 93 

William II. and, 80 

(See also Ghotek, Countess Sophy) 
Hohenlohe Schillingsfiirst, Prince God- 
frey of, 176 
Holstein, Herr von, 203 
Hungarian rebellion, the, 17-18, 118, 
145, 150 

societj^ characteristics of, 157 
Hungarians, the, and Archduchess 
Isabella, 174 

Empress Elisabeth and, 35, 42, 145, 

Francis Joseph and, 17-18, 150 
Hungary, 209 

and the Great War, 152 

coronation of queens of, 65 

Czechs in, 159 

development of, and the result, 148-9 

German population in, 159 

hatred of Russia, 150, 152, 155 

her ambitions, 155 

King of, 18, 145 

Poles in, 159 

political men and social life, 145-58 

reconciliation with Francis Joseph, 
42, 146 

Slavs in, 159 

supremacy of, in Austrian politics, 136 

the clergy and, 200 

William II. and, 205 

women of, 156 



Irmgard, Sister. (See Isabella, Arch- 
duchess, daughter of Archduke 
Frederick) 
Isabella, Archduchess (daughter of 
Archduke Frederick), 176 
a battlefield romance, 183 
as Red Cross nurse, 176, 182 
her marriage annulled, 180 
leaves her husband, 177 et seg. 
marries Prince George of Bavaria, 

176 
volunteers as nurse for the front, 183 



Isabella, Archduchess (wife of Arch- 
duke Frederick), and Countess 
Sophy Ghotek, 60, 75 

children of, 175 

her influence in Imperial Family, 175 

Hungarians and, 174 

marriage, 69, 137, 173 
Isabella of Croy, Princess, 173 

marries Archduke Frederick, 69, 137 
Italian war of 1848, the, 12 
Italy, war with Austria, 218 
Ischl, a royal engagement at, 23, 24 

Frau Schratt's cottage, 108 
Izvolsky, M., 101 



Jesuits, the, 68, 73, 114, 117, 133, 194, 
196 

Joseph Ferdinand of Tuscany, Arch- 
duke, 69 

Juarez and the King of Mexico, 55, 56 



Karl Franz Joseph, Archduke, 61, 76, 

80, 155 
Karolyi, Count Aloys, 83, 151 
Karolyi, Countess, 151 
Kiev, 164 

Kinsky, Countess, wedding of, 94 
Kleisheim, castle of, 88 
Kloss, Herr von, 186 
Konopischt, Marie Th6r6se visits, 61 
self-invited visit of William II., 84 
Kusmanek, 207 



Langkoronski, Count, 138 
Larisch, Countess, 112 
Leo XIII., Pope, death of, 188 
Leopold I., King, marriage of his 

daughter, 50 
Leopold, Emperor, 222 

and Sobieski, 222-3 
Leopold, Prince in Bavaria, 176 
Liechtenstein, Prince, 66 
Lonyay, Count, 57 
Lory, Princess. (See Schwarzenberg, 

Princess) 
Louis Victor, Archduke, 87, 88 

imprisoned in castle of Kleisheim, 88 

231 



Index 



Louise in Bavaria, Duchess, 23 
Lubomirskis, the, 164 
Luitpold, Prince, 180 



Macchio, Baron de, 210 
Mackensen, 207 

Madeira, Empress Elisabeth at, 37 
Magyar aristocracy, the, 151 
Magyars, the, 145, 150, 151, 156, 200 
Margaret of Saxony, Princess, marriage 

of, 58 
Marie, Empress, and the abdication of 
Ferdinand I., 14-15 
austere views of, 2 
marries Ferdinand I,, 2 
religious tendencies of, 3, 6 
Marie Anne, Archduchess (Princess 

Elie of Parma), 176 
Marie Anne of Savoy, Princess. {See 

Marie, Empress) 
Marie Annonciade, Archduchess 
(daughter of Marie TherSse), ap- 
pointed Abbess, 64, 65 
Marie Antoinette, 6 
Marie Christine, Archduchess, 175 
Marie Christine as Abbess, 65 
Marie Henrietta, Archduchess, 176 
Marie Josepha, Archduchess, 58, 66, 174 
her sons, 68 

influence with Francis Joseph, 68 

separation from her husband, 67 

Marie Louise, Empress, morganatic 

marriage of, 12, 89 
Marie Th6r6se, an unfounded report, 
59-60 
and Francis Joseph, 59 
Archduke Ferdinand Charles and, 

63, 64 
enters a convent, 60 
her daughters, 64-6 
influence at Court, 59, 60, 61 
interviews Francis Joseph, 180 
marriage of, 58 
plain speech with Francis Joseph, 61, 

77 
sTielters her niece, 180 
Marie Valerie, Archduchess, 44, 47, 70, 
174, 178 
and Frau Schratt, 109 



Marie Valerie, Archduchess, installed 
at Schdnbrunn, 109 
Prince von Montenuovo and, 89 
scenes with Francis Joseph, 109 
Mary, Queen of Great Britain and 

Ireland, 81 
Maximilian, Archduke, 21, 36, 49 
a quarrel with Francis Joseph, 51 
accepts throne of Mexico, 30, 51 
at Milan, 30, 49 
death of, 8, 9, 49, 54, 55 
Francis Joseph's jealousy of, 30, 36 

50, 52 
his friendship with Empress Elisa- 
beth, 36, 50, 51 
last meeting with Francis Joseph, 54 
marriage of, 50 

renounces his right of succession, 53 , 
54 
Mayerling, the tragedy of, 30, 43, 116- 

130 
Mensdorfl, Count Albert, 210 
Metternich, Prince von, 1, 3, 217 
Metternich, Princess Pauline, 140, 141 
and Baron Nathaniel Rothschild, 
140-1 
Mexico, Maximilian accepts throne, 30, 

51 
Miguel, Dom, 58 

Milan, Maximilian viceroy at, 30, 49 
Miramar, 50, 54, 56, 57, 84 
Empress Elisabeth at, 51, 56 
re-marriage of Crown Princess Ste- 
phanie at, 57 
Modena, the Duke of, his will, 61, 76 
Montenuovo, Count "William von, 12, 
15, 89, 90 
as go-between, 14 
heroic deeds of, 12 
his sons, 15, 80, 87, 88 et seq. 
royal favours for, 15, 90 
Montenuovo, Prince Alfred, 15 

a schoolmate of Ferdinand of Bul- 
garia, 91 
Albert of Saxony and, 98 
and Count Aerenthal, 91 
Archduchess Marie Valerie and, 89 
dispatches from the King of Bul- 
garia, 92 
Frau Schratt and, 106 



232 



Index 



Montenuovo, Prince Alfred, funeral | Qubretaro tragedy, the, 54 
of Sarajevo victims, 93-94 
his influence with Francis Joseph, 

80, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 99 
marriage of, 94 
Montenuovo, Princess von, 94 



Naples, Queen of, 45 

Napoleon, re-marriage of his widow, 12, 

89 
Neipperg, Count, marries Empress 

Marie Louise, 12 
Nicholas I., Tsar, and the Hungarian 

rebellion, 17-19 
Nicholas II., Tsar, visits Vienna, 44 
" Nini," Princess. (See Esterhazy, 

Princess Eug6nie) 



Olmxjtz Convention, the, 217 
Orth, John, 117, 118 
Otto, Archduke, 58 

death of, 65 

exile of, 67 

his evil reputation, 66, 67 
Otto of Windisch Graetz, Prince, 71 



Paar, General Count, his devotion to 

Francis Joseph, 88, 95, 96 
Paris, Empress Elisabeth in, 45 
Pius X., Pope, election of, 193 
Podolia, 160, 170 
Poland, 225 

ambitions of, 161 

hatred of Russia, 162 

independence of, and its conse- 
quences, 163, 164 

priesthood of, 195 
Poles, the, 159, 160 

and Galicia, 165 

and the Ruthenians, 165 
Poltava, 164 

Portuguese Pretender, the, 58 
Potocka, Countess Roman, 142 
Potockis, the, 164 
Prague, 168, 169 
Przemysl, fortress of, 207 
Puzyna, Cardinal, 190 



Radziwill, Prince, 161 
Radziwill, Princess, 142 
Rampolla, Cardinal, 189, 190 
Reichstadt (Bohemia), 60 
Reichstadt, the Duke of, 9, 13 
Revolution of 1848, the, 1 et seq. 
Riviera, the, Empress Elisabeth visits, 

45 
Roman Church, the, and mixed mar- 
riages, 132, 191 
Rothschild, Baron Nathaniel, 140-1 

Princess Metternich and, 140-1 
Rudolph, Crown Prince, 30, 37 

author's meeting with, 121 

becomes a slave to drugs, 127 

culture of, 122, 123 

funeral of, 129 

his daughter, 126 

his mother, 125 

meets Marie Vetsera, 126 

tragic death of, 43, 116 et seq. 
Russia, Albert of Saxony and, 98 

and Bohemia, 169, 170 

Austrian hatred of, 30, 73 

Polish attitude towards, 162 

Prince von Montenuovo and, 91, 92 
Ruthenians, the, 164-6 

and Galicia, 165 

religion of, 165 

Russian sympathies of, 164 



Sadowa, battle of, 29, 30, 219 

Salm Salm, Prince of, 175 

Salvator, Archduke Franz, marriage of, 

44 
Salvator, Archduke John, 117 
Sarajevo tragedy, the, 58, 61, 72, 85, 
93, 152 

funeral of the victims, 94 
Savoy, Princess Marie Anne of. (See 

Marie, Empress) 
Saxony, 217 

and Russia, 98 ^ 

Crown Princess of, 187, 220 
Schratt, Frau Catherine, 70, 90, 99, 102 

and Prince von Montenuovo, 106 



233 



Index 



Schratt, Frau Catherine, anecdote con- 
cerning, 112 
Archduchess Valerie and, 109 
Duchess of Hohenberg and, 110 
Empress Elisabeth's visit to, 106 
establishes a private hospital, 110 
Francis Joseph and, 102, 105 ei seq. 
hatred of Russia, 114 
her royal lover, 102, 105 et seq. 
personality of, 110 
Schwarzenberg, Prince, 217, 218 
Schwarzenberg, Princess Lory, 11 et 
seq., 141 
grudge against Empress Marie Anne, 
13 
Schwarzenbergs, the, 168 
Sedan, 217 
Servia, Austrian ultimatum to, 31, 197, 

206 
Silesia, peasantry of, 198 
Slavs, Russian, 166 
Sobieski, John, King of Poland, 222-3 
Solferino, battle of, 219 
Sophy, Archduchess and Archduke 
Maximilian, 21, 52, 54, 55 
and the abdication of Ferdinand I., 

14-15 
anxiety as to future of Habsburg 

dynasty, 22 
arranges marriage for Francis Joseph, 

22, 103 
criticises her daughter-in-law, 34 
death of, 41 
diplomacy of, 7 
her sisters, 8 
her sons, 7, 8, 9-11, 21 ei seq., 52, 54, 

55 
influence over Francis Joseph, 10 
marriage of, 6 
personality of, 10 

plain speech with Francis Joseph, 52 
represses Empress Elisabeth, 27 
strained relations with Francis 

Joseph, 21 
the Duke of Reich stadt and, 9 
Stephanie, Crown Princess, at Miramar, 
56 
her daughter, 126 

marries Crown Prince Rudolph, 125 
re-marriage of, 57 

234 



Stephanie, Crown Princess, strained 

relations with her husband, 126 
Szapary, Count, 210 
Szecsen de Temerin, Count, 210 

Tarnowski, Count, 210 
Thuns, the, 168 
Tisza, Count, 149, 152, 154 
Transylvania, 225 
Trauttmansdorff, Princess of, 138 
Trentino, the, 209 
Trieste, 209, 225 

Triple Alliance, the, 30, 31, 97, 99, 148. 
202 

Francis Joseph's claim, 30 

submission of Austria to, 97 et seq. 
Tschirsky, Herr von, 100, 101, 154 

and the ultimatum to Servia, 206 
Tschuber, Bertha, 63 
Tschuber, Professor, 63, 64 
Turks, defeat of the, 222 
Tuscany, Archduke Joseph Ferdinand 

of, 68 
Tyrol, the, 209, 225 

peasantry of, 198 

Ukraine, 160, 164, 165 

Vatican, the, a power in Austria, 188 
Vetsera, Baron, 119 

death of, 121 
Vetsera, Marie, 117 

author's meeting with, 119 

burial of, 130 

love affairs of, 121 

tragic death of, 129 
Vienna, a bet and its sequel, 192-3 

acclaims Princess Elisabeth, 25 

attempted assassination of Francis 
Joseph, 20 

Cardinal Archbishop of, 189 

Congress of, 136 

cult of gossip in, 133 

entertaining in, 139 

financial circles in, 140 

Jews and financiers of, 140 

present-day social life in, 135 

prominent Hungarians in, 142 



Index 



Vienna, public entry of Empress Elisa- 
beth, 25 

revolution of 1848, 1 

siege of, 222 

society in, 131 

visit of Tsar and Tsaritza, 44 
Volhynia, 160, 170 



Waldbourg, Count George of, 70 
Warsaw captured by the enemy, 208 
William L of Prussia, King, 31 
William II., Emperor, and the Duchess 
of Hohenberg, 80 
and the Catholic clergy, 200 
Francis Joseph and, 99^100 



William II., Emperor, Francis Joseph's 
opinion of, 31 
funeral of Sarajevo victims, 94 
Hungary and, 205 
threat of separate peace, 208 
visits Francis Ferdinand at Miramar, 
84 
Windisch Graetz, Prince Otto of, 71 
Windsor Castle, Francis Ferdinand and 

his -wife at, 81 
Wuthenau, Baron, 191 



Zamoyskis, the, 164 
Zita of Bourbon Parma, Princess, 65, 
86 



235 



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